Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Chef with a hat-trick of Michelin stars, first to win two for a pub, TV food personality, and author of best-selling weight loss cookbooks.
On the island
Eight records
and Slide Away is the track that I've chosen from definitely maybe for me arguably the best debut album ever and this is a track that I used to put on when I used to get in late at night about half past one on repeat and I would fall asleep listen to it and it'd be on all through the night so Slide Away is my first track.
It's a Beatles track, kind of my first experience of music. My dad was a big Beatles fan, and it is one of my earliest memories of sitting on a sofa with big earphones on, like proper clumpy old school ones. Me and my brother with those connecting into this cassette player and listening to Here Comes the Sun.
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
For me, it was my first real live gig. And I remember queuing up overnight with my mate Neil to get tickets to go and see Michael Jackson perform at Cardiff Arms Park. So we were 16 and it was the first real experience of such an amazing and incredible, not just musician, but showman.
For me, one of the most underrated bands I think ever, and it's Placebo and their track Black Eyed. ... there's a few lyrics about coming from a broken home and how it connects.
It's the Progedy, and the track I'm going to choose is Everybody in the Place. ... for me, Progedy, everybody in the place, this is a real motivator. It's one if you're on a breakfast shift. No one wants a chilled-out song in the morning. You want this. This wakes you up and gets you cooking breakfast.
ProofFavourite
John Bramwell is a singer-songwriter from the band called I Am Clute. ... this track for me hugely connects to me. It's the most beautiful record I think ever written. It's very special. It relates to alcohol. It relates to a slightly dysfunctional relationship with it, with other people.
One of my favourite bands ever, and it's a band called The Rifles. They played at my 40th, which was pretty much the last time I drank. ... They let us use this track as the title music. So they've got so many good tunes, but this one is quite special to me because it comes from the TV show.
It's the National, which is an American band from Ohio, and it's called Fake Empire. And it's because I feel that I'm in a fake empire.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:58How on earth do you manage to fit in training now on top of the demands of your career and family life?
as a chef, you you kind of forego a lot of sleep. So I've always been quite good at getting up in the mornings, like powering through, walking up the road with your eyes closed or making a cup of tea or all of that stuff from early doors in a kitchen. I've always been quite good at powering on with very little sleep. And I kind of have the same ethos to it now.
Presenter asks
2:26How did you find working together [with your wife Beth]?
Well, we still do to a point. The first year was pretty difficult, I got to be honest. Like, as a husband and wife, it's amazing. Because it's bumpy. You know, you spend time with each other and it's amazing as a husband and wife, but you then spend time with each other as a head chef and a restaurant manager. Finding that balance between being a work relationship and a husband and wife relationship is very difficult. ... I owe everything to Beth. She gave up her career for a number of years.
Presenter asks
5:23Who's right, I wonder? Some chefs play around with molecular gastronomy and dry ice and describe themselves as artists, but you describe cooking as a trade.
The keepsakes
The book
Marco Pierre White
second to winning Two Mission Stars, one of the proudest moments of my career is being asked by Marco to write a piece for the re-edition of the After 25 years. So I'm so proud of that.
The luxury
Shaving kit with shaving gel, disposable razors, moisturizing cream and oil
I am a bit of a man of routine and I have to shave my head every day. So I will be taking a razor sharp shaving kit so I can shave my head.
Well, everybody's right. But for me, it is like a trade. Like I'm a builder, I'm a carpenter. I've learnt the building block. Like you lay a foundation. I understand, you know, there's flavor of foundations, the process of cooking, the understanding of how to cut and cook different cuts of meat, an understanding of salt and savoury and acidity levels. They're all just building blocks in creating a dish, which is like building a house.
Presenter asks
6:06How precarious have things been for you, right back to the early days — have you ever had that kind of sense of security?
Even now, I'm terrified that every day no one's going to turn up. ... I think that's probably the same for every restaurant. You know, in those early years, you know, 2008, when that first recession hit, there was a period where we were very much struggling as a business across the board. ... we made a decision as a husband and wife on one day that we're going to put a £10 set lunch on. That's it. Set this 10 quid. We'll get bums on seats. ... And there were periods in that when I was doing 48-hour shifts pretty much.
Presenter asks
24:08What was the trigger point in deciding that you were going to make some changes and lose some weight?
Age, it got to a point where I was 39, approaching 40th birthday. ... it is a point of reflection. You do sit back and you think, okay, what have I achieved? Where am I at? What's going on? What am I doing? To then go in, how do I want to live the next 40 years? ... I wasn't going to unless I made a change. ... There wasn't a health issue that arose. It was just a point of going, Some I've got to do something here.
Presenter asks
25:17Having lost so much, what feels different to you?
Yeah, hugely. Well, yeah, and exercise was big. So I started off by swimming and I used to s and then I would sw I would swim a mile and I'd swim it really slowly and I and I wouldn't give up. And it's a big step to get into a swimming pool being that big. Like being conscious of your body and worrying about like it's not just going to the gym where you've got clothes on. You're you're just walking around in your pants essentially.
Presenter asks
30:25How do you know when you've gone beyond [the work hard, play hard mentality] and you've strayed into territory where this is a problem?
Okay, you know you've gone beyond that when you drive around in the boot of your car with a case of beer and a bottle of gin just in case you're working somewhere that night and the bar is closed by the time you get there. ... That is a point where you go, okay, if I if I at the end of wherever I am, I might be away cooking somewhere, I might be filming, I might be doing something. If it gets to a point where I go back to the hotel and the bar is closed, I had pretty much a sleepless night the night before knowing that I go away, thinking that I won't be able to get a drink at that point.
“And I was very lucky that I walked in somewhere and knew that would be my life.”
“When you run a business and you've invested everything you've got, you've got no pension scheme, you've got no savings, you've got nothing. The only thing that you have is this business that you don't even own the freehold of the pub. You just got to go, right? I own this business to make it work. I've got the only person that can do this is me. So you just have to commit to it.”
“That's probably the biggest thing that I've learned-not food, about warmth and hospitality and love that my mum gave and still hugely gives to everybody that she lives nearby and locally with now.”
“I have completely destroyed alcohol for myself. I am untrustworthy with it. ... there is no stopping me when I have one. There's no, I don't understand our drink at all. I don't get our beer. Like, for me, it's like nobody has just a little bit of something. The purpose of it is to get smashed in drunk.”
“I look back at it and I don't regret a single minute of it, but I do feel ... massively uncomfortable thinking of that person. And every now and then I miss that guy. I miss the chaos. I miss the fun and I miss and I regret that I can't ever do that just once 'cause I can't and I know I can't be that person.”
“I'm like everybody I think that does all right in business, there's a bit of you that is terrified it's all going to collapse and fall apart. And I'm waiting for somebody to tap me on the shoulder and go, All right, mate, listen, your time's up. You've blagged this for long enough.”