Yes.
And I mean that and I will tell the boys that.
Does that motivate you?
Well it motivates me to carry on but it won’t motivate me to change anything. We get a Hell of a lot of Chefs eating here and it’s great the comments we get from them. But I am not going to start believing my own Bullshit and that is the key.
So you don’t look at dishes on your menu and think “That’s two star”?
No, I look at a dish and the first question is “Do I want to eat it?”
Yes.
That’s it, regardless of the star rating because I don’t know how they judge the star rating. The secret is – do what you do. As I said before there is no race to get there it is just a badge. A badge of absolute exclusivity with regards to quality and yes, we all want to cook at that level; to say “Yes, we’re cooking!” But there is no way I am going to contrive what we do here by me mis-interpreting what I think they want. I could go off on a tangent and screw it all up.
Absolutely.
And I have got to show the boys that the confidence is within; in the produce. The guys start again from scratch! Today. Every day, it’s not a case of “Wow aren’t we lucky we’ve got a star”; no it’s about “Do you want to eat that dish?” “ Is that the best you can do?” “Yes, Chef.” – fine then get it out.
Tell us a bit about you. Everyone knows you from when you had Restaurant Sat Bains, but tell us a bit about the early Sat Bains… A lad from Derbyshire.
Yes, I’m from Derby. From Normanton – the really posh end of Derby.
Is there a posh area of Derby?! (Laughter)
Yes, of course there is. I went to Willmorton College. And it has been well documented that I joined a course with the most girls on it… half of them were lesbians (but I didn’t know that at the time). I enjoyed what I did. Had a great time and fell in love with cooking. It wasn’t until I was in the trade, probably about 23 that I first read about Marco. And I thought “Wow, this guy is unbelievable”. I was working in a restaurant at the time and this pushed me on. I thought “OMG, what am I doing?” It inspired me to send a few CV’s off and see what happened. I sent one of to John Burton-Race… Got rejected. I always remember this ponsey watercolour at the bottom of the paper he rejected me on, it was a picture of him cooking. And I decided at that moment that I am never going to believe my own bullshit because it was just so over the top … it’s just so much bullshit. Anyway, I got rejected, which was a great thing. I went to work for Petit Blanc. Had a great time; very hard work. 18 of us opened the restaurant within 6 months there was 10 of us left. It was hard, hard graft. It was great because you were taught that you can push yourself. 18 – 20 hours a day; 6/7/8 weeks on the trot. We were wrecked. I lost three stone in three months. I was actually in bits, but I had a great time.
And what a fantastic diet plan – there’s a book there – work for Raymond Blanc (laughter)
But what was great, you did it and you survived. And that is what I needed, I was only 25 and I needed a kick up the ass. Me and my wife got married. Went to St Lucia for the honeymoon. Came back and straight away went to Oxford for a year and then came back to Nottingham.
