Tom Kerridge: “Being a Chef is Nothing To Do with Food”

0:00Tom Kerridge:All the problems that have dropped into hospitality now, the numbers just don't work. Going on question time, you get to meet the politicians. They have the lever with VAT. The hours I worked there were way more than anywhere else. I was in at 6.30 in the morning, sometimes I wasn't leaving till 1.30. Genuinely, I never saw daylight. Do you start thinking this is probably the world I want to be in? The energy, the space, the noise, the adrenaline, the fear, everything that comes with it. Being a chef is nothing to do with food. being a chef is your ability to operate in that space would all chefs agree with that

0:35Tom Kerridge:this is a global production

0:42this is quite an odd little subcategory now a full disclosure there's like three or four people who came on the podcast during lockdown or sort of there or thereabouts so we did it down the line We did it on the screen and it doesn't work in quite the same way as it does when you do it in person. So I can't remember everybody in that category. But Tom Kerridge is and he's here again today. Tom, thank you.

1:06Tom Kerridge:Thanks for having me. You're much more handsome in real life. Well, so are you, mate. Thank you. This is quite a great start. You've kind of embraced an activist role a little bit more than you had previously. Did that happen by accident or did you sort of decide that it was time? there's not that many people who can speak up for the industry and and you're one of the ones who can yeah so it's kind of happened by accident but then i found myself in a space so you you you know you you cook you do well you run a business it's all okay you you know i ended up doing things on television you know with a tv series and then lockdown came and we ended up doing the podcast and differently and when you've then become a face i suppose in media and you say some words and news programs then want to know what's going on within your industry and people want that they'll contact somebody who people might know if you've also got you cook on the telly but you've also got restaurants so you're at the cold face of what's going on that's somebody that they ask for opinion so i gave opinion and it was very heartfelt i've always been pretty brutally honest with all of the questions that have come my way regarding i don't know p and l's and profit margins and what's going on.

2:13Tom Kerridge:I don't pretend to be anything else. So I kind of hope that I then represent business and business in a bigger sense within that hospitality world. And then since then, over the last number of years, there's been a push from, I suppose, from a political standpoint, going on things like Newsnight, going on Question Time, going on Peston. And when you do those kind of politically motivated shows that are based on that, but you're there from a business perspective you get to meet the politicians you get to meet the policy makers and the conversations with them and the conversations off screen are obviously often quite different to the conversations on screen because they're saying stuff that is guarded about policies that they're making or ideas that are floating they can't say them out loud because everyone dreamt on them i i've understood i understand that now so when people go well they never do anything they don't they actually do work pretty hard at making ideas happen and trying to create things and but they're months that formulating these plans take ages to process so you recognize that so much goes on behind the scenes so then i found myself in a position of talking to members of government about vat and the issue that that has with hospitality and and and how it's not in line with the rest of europe and how all the problems that have dropped into hospitality now the numbers just don't work it just it just doesn't it just doesn't work and they have the lever with VAT.

3:37Tom Kerridge:And then off screen, there's front bench politicians that are, you know, serving in cabinet, but also shadow cabinet, also different, you know, other political parties that are all agreeing that something's got to be done and 10 % hospitality needs to be done. So when you know that they all know it, but they're not saying it up front, then it's a case of, right, well, I know, you know, now you've told me and I know, now I need the industry to all go, listen if we put enough pressure on they they've hopefully treasury the doors of those great big locked vault doors where all the money is will kind of crumble a little bit and help release growth that comes into so many more businesses but you're really engaged by it as well you're finding the sort of intellectual exercise really exciting because you're speaking in a really animated manner about this stuff because that surprised you and and alongside that question what about when when fiona bruce throws you a question about an area that you're not an expert in what's that what's that like that's that's the bit where it gets really nerve-wracking the last the last one i got the last one was um i was it was in birmingham and there was a conversation about immigration there was obviously a conversation that you know the rest of politicians knew that i was i was on i was going to be on they knew i said there's going to be a conversation about hospitality and pubs and whatever so there's no so you have that conversation then the last question on question time that was about about um a birmingham city council and it's like i don't live there i've visited a few times i've been here i've watched football a couple of times i'd have been to see a couple of concerts the reality of like what do i know about how to make a city councils run that's where it's a little bit well like here's my opinion of how i think things should be but don't take that as read so so that's when it gets nervous on question time i love that so you're describing really the art of the possible and and some people might have been quite disillusioned to discover the gulf between what politicians do in public and what they're like in private but you're seeing it as quite encouraging and quite um uh positive yeah i have to be honest i'd never really been i'm interested in politics and i've always i've always been a labor party supporter my background of where i am i've always been a supporter of workforce and uh working class spaces and people and equal opportunities or at least having a chance to and the right to have an education system a transportation system a health care system you know i've i've come from that background that's where i firmly believe in it but i've never really believed in politicians across board i'd never really worked and i thought okay but then the more and more the last 10 15 years have been able to engage with them in a more um i suppose government sense not just local politicians in a government sense that going and it's a cross party i've been impressed by politicians and you meet them in real life rishi sunak i came to one of our restaurants we sat down had dinner with him he had dinner sat down with him after his dinner for for a chat that i thought would be five minutes and i'd be very polite with him and it'd be actually it was a really engaging good half hour conversation of somebody like you might not agree with all of the policies and it's politics don't always sit like a football team and you hate that and you agree with that it's actually the cross-party politics where a lot of them agree on is that we don't celebrate that enough it's not you know there are politicians from other parties you completely agree with and find lots of things in common with.

6:52Tom Kerridge:So I have been super impressed with many of them as actual human beings, but then they never, it's very hard for them to come across like that when they're getting questioned all the time, their job is being sat in a political sphere and getting questioned by people like yourself that then they're trying to defend spaces that might be a party political line, not their own. And it kind of undermines necessarily who they are personally. And sometimes that doesn't come across. So the last 10, 15 years of being able to meet politicians in real life, across party, there's many of them that thought, actually, you're not as bad as I thought.

7:26I like that. It's why so many of them, when they actually leave politics, we all end those, you know, people who don't get to meet them off air or off screen. Everybody goes, oh, he's quite nice. Well, she's quite nice. Because when they're on air, they have to be so guarded and robotic all the time that they can't say anything. um you mentioned background so let's let's begin at the beginning which is in in um in Gloucester really yeah isn't it eldest of two brothers what was home like uh home was uh so we grew up in in

7:56Tom Kerridge:Gloucester and there's the bit my mum and dad split up when I was 11 it was funny I went back the other day to visit my brother my brother's still in Gloucester and we were chatting about we want to go we want to go and get a Chinese takeaway and like from the old estate that we grew up on and like reminisce a little bit about where we were. In fact, actually on the way there, we stopped to where one of my dad's flats where he lived to take a picture to show my son exactly kind of, this is the background. This is where, this is where I grew up, not like this nice big house that we live in now.

8:23Tom Kerridge:That's on the river on in Marlow. This is, this is where I'll come from. And this is the reality of it is, and it's trying to get into his head, but we went back there. Myself and my brother picked up this Chinese takeaway and we were laughing about, you know, we don't really, neither of us really remember the times when my dad was there and my brother completely knows that he blocked a lot of it out like he doesn't remember i think they were unhappy times um and he and he doesn't recall any of it i recall bits and bobs of it that were not i don't think he was the greatest father figure or husband is probably the best way of describing it and then he my mom and dad separated when they when i was 11 um but he was also diagnosed i found out from a kid at school but i didn't know and you know like when things happen and then other parents talk and what but i found out from a kid at school that he had multiple sclerosis he had ms so he then kind of from that point kind of rapidly deteriorated and he ended up moving in with his mum our grandmother in a bungalow and and then he went into a nursing home and a care home and as it went deteriorate when we it was really really bad to the point where it was he he was unrecognizable and he didn't really recognize us to that point but we grew up we visit him and but it was we spent we spent our time with our mum we grew up with our mum and our mum was amazing she is she is amazing she's brilliant she was she she ran this house um where it was kind of one of those houses who opened to all the kids on the estate and this single parent thing like it's it wasn't weird it wasn't different where we grew up like there was loads of people exactly the same situation it was just like a fairly normal space so she was kind of that first point and our house was probably the safe house and i look back at it now as a parent you go i'll see what she did there so well if you're going to come anywhere you'll come into our house and you'll hang in the garage there and if you're going to smoke cigarettes or drink cider and be a naughty boy you can do it in the garden here because it's safe or or you hang around like the bridge down at the bottom so it was kind of creating an environment where we could all hang out even though we you know we kind of subconsciously didn't realize it was actually maybe you're keeping an eye on us so that was a for us it was that we never missed out on anything my mom is amazing she made us feel completely loved we never missed it on any feeling of family unity it was there was the three of us and it was great so a happy home a warm home yeah absolutely i think adolescence was always quite sure teenage it is quite we both went to we went we went to an all boys comprehensive school that was in the middle of four counts of the states so my mum calls it the school of life that's where she so it was quite it was a it was a bit of a i mean it was kind of a i mean it was a rough old school sometimes but i don't maybe now when i look back at it and go oh yeah i was pretty rough like you know you don't know when you don't know like all you know it's fairly standard that the hydrant mats are on fire at a long time i mean it's kind of like oh yeah there we go like or you know you just go oh yeah another thing's happened someone's got stabbed with a with a with a what um compass compass yeah that was one of the things the bunsen burners are like you're setting like all that kind of normal behavior it was kind of like fairly standard and normal but for me it was um we we never felt that we were grown up in anything different or disadvantaged or you know you look back at it now and you kind of realize that it you know it was there wasn't a lot of money there was no money around what do you remember primary school what was primary school primary school was again was on uh one of the estates at the bottom and and that was quite good fun we used to ride our bikes there we lived on a small house it was very close to like a like a hill called robinswood hill which is on the just on the outskirts of glossary between toughly and wadden and it's and you and you would go you know when you you would go out you'd leave that you'd ride your bikes off and you go disappear into the woods now like now like and you look at it now and you go well i was like 10 9 10 and you just disappear in the woods for half a day like it and you just go see you later and mom will go yeah come make sure you come back when it's before it's dark and like it just doesn't happen now does it just doesn't happen days before mobile phones or anything like that did you engage with school did you i mean did you enjoy it did you get your head down were you a good student i don't think i was bad i look i think there's levels in there and i compare myself to like the other kids in that school and i go yeah i was like i was like quite a good kid i think i was like there was so there was there was there was proper levels there that were quite hard for i think teachers to deal with and i i was not in that level i enjoyed school because of that i enjoyed because of the banter and the fun um i enjoyed having loads of mates always really social i enjoyed it for the rugby team and all of that sort of stuff but in terms of in terms of lessons and listening and writing things down and repeating it for an exam at the end was just not for me it just wasn't my just wasn't my thing the lessons that i quite enjoyed and i liked were like art were uh art was pe uh was um I quite enjoyed biology, but things that were just a little bit more creative, in touch with things that were going on, things like chemistry, physics.

13:18Tom Kerridge:I never even went to physics. I used to go, I used to, I remember I used to walk past the classroom window when I was supposed to be in there and just waver at the teacher. I'd go home. I would just, I just wouldn't engage. I wouldn't engage. Sorry, Mr. Humphreys, but it just wasn't, it just wasn't my thing. So, I mean, no real focus on, in your teenage years, on what you might do after leaving school. no no real no real engagement in terms of what i wanted to do but the weird thing is and i look back at it i think both my mom and myself i always knew i'd be all right like i was there well i just i don't know i just had a i just always knew i'd be okay i never i was never fearful and i don't think my mom was ever fearful that i always had a work ethic right i was always out i was always doing stuff on with people yeah always got on with people and always had a work ethic not necessarily for school work no but i wouldn't i wouldn't come home and sit on the sofa and do nothing i'll come home we'd do something we'd always be out i'd always be doing something i would always be either playing or doing so i remember i remember a point of actually i skived off school one day with my mate rob whatum and the bottom of our wall had collapsed where we'd been jumping over it and this brick wall had smashed and collapsed on the bottom of the floor and my mum we hadn't got right no one it was just a pile of bricks there and it'd been there for months and i remember actually one day we built a barbecue like we built like we we got some sand we got some cement we didn't have any sand actually we had we went to the school we robbed the sand from the from the long jump sandpit from school it's like it came back a mixed cement and we built like a barbecue with the brick like and like a proper barbecue and then we cooked a barbecue in the evening for all the boys and my mum was kind of like there was a i mean a sense of one you've skived our school two you stole the sand from the sandpit like from the school free that i mean yeah i'll have a burger that'd be nice like it was kind of like like it was quite It was quite, we were always doing, I was doing stuff.

15:05So it's a right moral quandary, isn't it?

15:08Tom Kerridge:Yeah. So I don't think she ever worried, and I wasn't ever worried either, that I was going to do something. I never thought I'd imagine that I'd be sat here doing something like this. But I always thought I'd be all right. So there's no angst. There's no existential fear of the future or anything like that. No, never. I'm always quite happy walking to things that I'm quite, brave is the wrong word, but I'll take risk. And I'll quite happily walk into a room not knowing who anybody is. and I'll quite happily discover a process. I'll quite happily step in outside of comfort zones. Like if that's where you're comfortable, that's where you'll always stay.

15:40Tom Kerridge:I'm quite happy going, well, let's stretch it and move it. And I've always had that. I've always had a, not inquisitive, but oh yeah, all right, let's do that. Adventurous. Yeah, I think so. And then I think about that. And I think when you think of adventurous, you think of people that climb mountains or jump out of planes or that's not me. It's just not on rails, not stuck. And also not intimidated as well. that comes across a lot in all of your work actually and it explains what we were talking about at the beginning yeah with the politics but but it hasn't changed because it would be easy to understand when you've got very little to lose why you might have a slightly fearless nature but but now that you are very successful it hasn't changed you've still got that attitude yeah so i i i have very much and and what have we got to lose businesses and people's lives you know the responsibility of 250 staff and all of their kids and all of that that that's a big thing like business but business is well that's why I keep working hard and try and push things like the VAT process and all those sort of things because it is about business survival

16:45so I mean I know acting was a thing at school as well wasn't it you enjoyed or was that yeah sort of

16:50Tom Kerridge:what happened there I like this side story well it wasn't really at school no but it's this era though isn't it yeah it is this era so my mate Neil who lived around the corner his mum and dad didn't have a car but he was very much into theater and acting and dance he's actually an amazing dancer and he was so we were like my mom had a car so she would take him to this youth theater in Cheltenham um so so I joined I went with him because I thought well this would be quite good and he was like one of my best friends there was three of us who were great mates one of them was a is a professional sportsman he didn't he didn't want him he didn't want to go and learn sing and dance but i was like well we were it was quite interesting in terms of how we go let's go yeah i'll yeah i'll come with you so we went um and i loved it and it was in cheltenham and cheltenham is a it's eight miles away from gloucester and it's a very very different city like in the center anyway like it's a very very different space um and there's cheltenham's ladies college and there's a lot of people that are getting involved in um the youth theater and being a part of it and i and i find it quite a really interesting so it's completely new you come from an estate in Gloucester and this is quite like so I quite I really did quite enjoy it and then an agent came to see a show and some people and some bits and bobs and then asked if I would be do I fancy being on there but I was just like yeah all right yeah no problem and literally two weeks after that I was filming the Christmas special and Miss Marple like and it was where where the but this is where I kind of all unravels I played a ball still boy in Miss Marple And then I played Thug One, which was the official title in London's Birmingham.

18:27Tom Kerridge:So I recognised then that maybe it wasn't for my acting ability. It was perhaps for what I looked like. So I was like, right. You were a bit of both. Yeah, yeah. But Neil went on. He had a whole career. He actually left school fairly early, moved up to London. He was in the original cast of, he was in Joseph and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He was in the original cast of Mamma Mia. He had a whole West End career, then went on to be a theatrical agent. and so so his world from coming into that he went on to do that so the three of us as that were best mates mark pasty went on to be um a professional rugby player played for glossary's whole career neil went on to be in the theater and i went on to be a cook that ended up on the telly so the three of us that we kind of gelled together we got them really well yeah that's a little film yeah yeah yeah maybe yeah yeah i'm not sure who plays because mark's six foot eight and 24 stone i'm see i'm six foot three and look like shrek and neil is about five foot two and looks like arnold from different strokes so it's kind of the three of us were like like it was that like it yeah i'm not i'm not quite sure who plays who um but also that would have meant you had a few quid in your pocket as well when you were doing that i did well i did sort of when you're an actor like you earned a bit of money there and then i i mean yes i had a few quid but it's kind of something didn't last very long no i i think i earned about 500 quid for two weeks work which was massive when you're like 17 maybe it was a bit more it was a bit more actually because i i bought an mg montego uh which was amazing and then i wrote it off in two weeks in a massive collision so then so it's kind of like i i i made money i bought a mental car that nobody else would have when you were 17 and then i wrote it off two weeks later with um with only third party insurance and it was my fault so it's kind of like well that was a fun two weeks let's go and find something else to do i'm beginning to understand why your mom was never worried that you were going to be all right however things might have unfolded yeah i'd say this was not then a grand ambition you didn't find yourself suddenly thinking i have found my calling i am to tread to the board no not at all i i'm a big lover of the arts i love i love art and i love music and i love live live music and live performance and a pub in the park you're heavily involved yeah yeah yeah but still but like it was still massively into those sort of but acting i love movies and i love but i find if your job is pretending to be somebody else i find that quite like it's hard enough being me like i like i quite like being trying to be as honest and and as truthful to be me as i can be as opposed to trying to be somebody else so it wasn't really my it wasn't my world it was a skill set skill set of a magician or a dancer is they're expressing something that they're not pretending to be anything else and i quite the acting acting is slightly different yeah it did it didn't engage with me as something that i wanted to be so what about food what role did food play in your earlier life well i mean i ate a lot i was a big lad i played rugby and i ate a lot but it wasn't a world that i went actually this is what i'm going to do it didn't really occur like so i was you know and the kids in the 80s they're known as latchkey kids and my mom would have two jobs she'd work in the council uh as a secretary and then she'd wash up in the evening and me and my brother would come home and i would cook tea but tea would be finder's crispy pancakes it would be birds eye potato waffles it would be fish finger sandwiches it would be like i would be cooking something but i wouldn't it wouldn't be there was that sense of reward that you've cooked something that and also as a 13 or 14 year old you've lit a gas hob and you know there's a sense of responsibility that comes with that that i i think all touched like we never burnt the house down actually that's not true not from we never burnt the house down from the kitchen i did once set fire to my bedroom floor with shaving foam and matches so it was like quite but not cooking no not cooking exactly just to be clear that was something that happened in the bedroom but there was like but that we we there was that sense of um food that was really quite interesting in terms of you get reward for something that you've done but I never saw it really, really as a career until I was 18.

22:35Yeah, until I was 18. What about even as a, not even as a career, but just as something that takes you out of yourself? So when was the first time you tasted something that was extraordinary?

22:48Tom Kerridge:Yeah, there's a couple of moments, and they were actually, they're parts of when I remember my dad being there. So my dad used to have evenings in the house. It was very like bloke nights. He used to brew his own beer and he used to have very, very drink heavy evenings and he would set up on the table. And so this probably is 1980, maybe 1981 early. So I was seven or eight years old and there would be and there'd be things like pickled onions that as an eight year old, you never eat and things like that. And, but there was pate, like French pate that he'd have. Um, and, uh, he would do corned beef sandwiches with loads and loads and loads of English mustard.

23:28Tom Kerridge:And they were done, they were done in crispy kind of like bat rolls. And I just remember having some of that. And I remember having English mustard for the first time, pickled onions and pate. And these were flavor profiles. I just like, as a child, you go, what on earth? like like exciting and also like repelling like horrific but at the same point the realization that food the levels or the excitement or the the the the kind of impact that it can have was massive so those are my first like impactful food memories of going there's something quite different out there and quite adult about it like thinking i can't wait to get like grown-up taste buds yeah and then how does anyone like this so so and then when you're 18 you're you're sort of I sensed that there's several doors you could have gone through, but you ended up going through a hospitality door.

24:19Tom Kerridge:Yeah, I went into a kitchen. I needed money. I needed a job. So I went to a hotel up in Painswick, which is about four miles drive away. So I'd drive whatever battered motor I was able to afford at that point because I'd written me Montego off and get up to the hotel and I'd wash up and I would be washing up in the evening. but I remember and it wasn't the food it was the it was the energy it was the excitement it was the the banter in the kitchen and it was the conversations with the waiting staff and it was the the sense of there was an energy that rolls around and even if it was a quiet-ish country house hotel that you know on a Tuesday and a Wednesday there was a few people there and it was it was quite good and it was nice to be involved the build-up to the weekend the excitement and the energy that the chefs would have and then you get involved in the cooking and every now and then when they were busy and chefs were off or whatever else you would go from washing up to prepping some salads or doing some bits and bobs and then the realization of actually i'm really i love this i really really love this but what do you love the people or the food the people right the people the energy the space the noise the the the sense of excitement the adrenaline the fear the everything that comes with it being a chef is nothing to do with food being a chef is your ability to operate in that space food would all chefs agree with that probably to a point most chefs would agree that they've become chefs because of the energy of the space not because they have a love of food that can then tip into it of course you then become creative and some chefs would be very artistic in the way that they operate and work and some chefs will be more of a trades person i count myself like a tradesman that's learned to build brick walls and buildings through flavor profiles and understanding so i would say but there are other chefs and some are great friends that are much more creative in a world of like artistry and what they build and the flavor profiles they put together but every all of us are probably in that space because we love the energy the way that kitchens operate the way that they work the way that you build teams the way that you you your position in that team as you're growing up and it's quite easy to navigate as well to understand because kitchens have real hierarchy exactly so it's really easy to understand where your level is and what you do and if you want to get better the guy that there you've got to be as good as them in their job before you can ask for a pay rise and you can do it's simple you like well yeah i mean you like things that make sense don't you yeah you like you like to be able to understand what's going on absolutely yeah because then you know where you can fit in and what you can do next yeah but also i i can also disengage with things that i'm not interested in very very quickly i can just be i'm not interested i don't need to know i don't care actually i don't care it doesn't affect me i'm out i'm out like physics yeah yeah physics see later mrs humphries i'm going home like yeah so were you a bit lucky as well because we've all worked in places where it just felt like it was wonderful and so you know it doesn't matter whether you're in a kitchen or a shop or or an office sometimes the camaraderie and the connections and the friends that you make and the laughter that you have are just magical and other times you're working in exactly the same environment and and you're hating every minute of it because the boss is a twat or because you're sitting next to someone who's boring you were quite lucky then yeah i mean i've worked in places that have been uncomfortable and i haven't enjoyed i'm thinking about at the beginning to have had that moment that early yeah right at the beginning like it's you you get taken under somebody's wing and they encourage you and they show you and you also get told off properly and you also but you learn from that you start realizing then as an 18 year old that actually you're in an adult world the reality of it you can't you're coming out of your kind of you know your peer group is all your same mates that are all the same age and the adults that you have conversations with are like your your mum's friends or your the teachers or the kids other parents and you're just like when you go into a work environment you suddenly start realizing that okay so the next 60 70 years is a grown-up world okay i suppose i better start engaging in it do you know what i mean you realize quite quickly yeah and did you start thinking quite early this is probably the world i want to be in yeah i think i knew straight away yeah i think i i was very lucky i think i knew straight away i thought i couldn't i could not imagine once i found it doing anything else and that was really early on i just thought what what what else is there out there i don't and even if there is i don't i don't care i liked working weekends i like working the saturday i like working the sunday morning breakfast i like like as much as i didn't like as much as you know the saturday night you could finish work go out on the beer have a great night do whatever i was get to bed at three o 'clock and your alarm goes up three hours later because you got the breakfast shifts on a sunday it's not pleasant but i loved it do you know what i mean it's like the mixture of the two the juxtaposition of the pain of the tiredness but also the amazing the energy in the bus i didn't want to miss out on anything like i find sleep overrated like i do i like i genuinely like being awake like i like i do like don't get me wrong when i sleep i'll sleep quite heavily for a for i don't know i'll get five hours nice but after that if i wake up early and the sun's up now i love it i love it i love it now i love it i sleep with the curtains wide open i sleep with a window open and i sleep with like so if the sun comes up and i wake up and i say okay well i might as well get up now let's go and do i love i absolutely love it the birds singing everything's awake let's get let's let's get out and do stuff i love it i hate the winter i hate when the clocks go back and i hate i hate it's full it just makes it ah here we go again yeah another six months of cooking stews and everyone being miserable it's just like it just i much prefer it when it's daylight and lovely

29:59when did you become aware of the the hierarchy of the profession rather than the rather than the simple kitchen hierarchy when you know the hotel you were in was a nice yeah country house hotel but there you know there are kitchens and then there are kids there's some below that there's some above that how quickly did you become aware of that that kind of um structure when my mum

30:21Tom Kerridge:bought me marco pierre white's white heat cookery book from my it was my 18th birthday uh and it was that book was all of a sudden and it's the most one of the seminal turning points in british cookery because marco appeared and you've got to remember this is a time before the internet and And, you know, the creation of this character or even caricature that Marco has become or is, was this phenomenal chef that's an amazing cook, British. And this book was, cookbooks that you had before were very French textbook style. Or Delia. Yeah, or Delia was magic. I know. My mum had all of her cookbooks.

31:02Tom Kerridge:In fact, there's some recipes, like if you were trying to do something in the kitchen and you'd never done it before, it was an 18, 19 year old. you take i do a delia recipe and they go right how do i then how do we make this more how do we make this restaurant how do we do it like the fundamental basics of it delia smith is undeniably one of the greatest influences on british food but marco then suddenly flipped it with this book that he was cooking at a restaurant called harviz he had two mission stars he was creating this big noise in wandsworth in london and this energy was there and this book turned up with all these beautiful pictures black and white photography done by a fashion photographer called bob carlos clark and and he captured the energy the space the the late nights the the exhaustion the this rock and roll guy smoking a cigarette and his chef whites they're all scraggly and dirty and bags under his eyes and butcher's apron and and you just thought well that's that's what i look like that we we look like that we don't look like the french guys with the tall hats and the polished shoes that's us and then his food the back of it the back of the book was all the pictures of his just beautiful mind-blowing exquisite looking cuisine and you go okay that's like we cook but that's that's proper cooking that is next so so then i started realizing okay so that at that point was two mission stars and you're going okay we have no mission stars where i'm working now this is two mission stars what does that take and then you start beginning to go well what's this restaurant or where's that or there's a mission star restaurant in tetbury or there's a mission style restaurant in cheltenham where where i'm working in the minute in painswick how do i get to that what do i do where should i go how do i so this is drive now this is ambition kicking in yeah or also curiosity curiosity i think it's actually i don't think i'm ambitious right other people would say that slightly i don't like losing right so i'm quite competitive but i find most things i'm competitive with is my is myself like i'll go i'm going to do that and set myself a challenge and if i fail it i don't i don't like losing to somebody else but i'm more upset with myself but i so it's more inquisitive i'm not i'm not i never had ambitions to win things or stars or accolades or get but i have i have a drive to go well how do i make that better what do i do what like most things well that's great how do we make it really good or how do we and that's probably in everything so it's an end in itself it's not a means to an end you want you want it to be good because you want it to be good you don't want it to be good so that you get a pat on the head or you get exactly that i want it to be good because i want it to be good so when and then you realize as you get older you see produce different produce come through the door as a young chef you go oh yeah they're strawberries strawberries strawberries nah strawberries aren't strawberries and then all of a sudden when you eat one there's very and you go oh my god it looks exactly the same flavor is different the different you start realizing there's difference and there's levels did you cook anything out of marco's book did you have a cracker yeah yeah yeah remember the first one he had yeah he's got a nougat parfait and a nougat glace which is kind of like a a whipped uh meringue and cream mix with um praline folded through it that's then set so it's kind of like a set ice cream and then it's done in a pyramid that you have to make these kind of like praline pieces that are exactly the same so you get pyramid molds and sit it with it and make so it was like it was one of the first things i mean i started off doing a lot of pastry work actually it's what it's weird pastry's never been really my thing and it never is but it's one of our strongest sections at the hand of flowers but it's only because none of us are really pastry chefs so you have to hone a skill yeah you have to hone a skill that particular dish so yeah that was one of the first things i who did you serve that to that that was served in a restaurant that went on the menu um a small little restaurant called the country elephant that was so it was a 16 cover restaurant there was myself and the head chef called rob rob reese who owned the building and the two of us were working there and people how much are you moving around at this point that's my second place so you went from the hotel to the hotel to there and you said to rob can i have a crack at this try this i think we should put this on the menu yeah yeah can i i'm gonna have a go at making this he'd be like yeah great and then but this again had no mission sarahs but it was a very good restaurant rob worked for years at the gavroche actually and we would he wanted to achieve but he was just cooking really lovely home cooked properly done beautiful food and then from there i went to calcutt manor which had a mission star right so that was my first mission star and and already you're fluent in the in the language of restaurants you know about the significance of the gavroche and the rue brothers and and marco down in wandsworth and later gary roads i think and so you you're already you've just absorbed this yeah just cookbook in my bedtime reading like i'm not a reader i don't read books i'm not like i'd love i'd love to i wish i i wish i engaged in them but there's too but it's actually i would go to bed with cookery books i would read french cookery books i would read about and i would read recipes and i'd look at pictures and i would be everything would be all absorbing and it would be through cookery books a bit like i suppose kids are now with ipads and mobile phones or youtube but mine would be the same page after page after page of cookery books yeah how do you know you're good um wow i don't know that's hard to say i think probably again in kitchens yeah it's quite an easy you can quantify it because the guy who's next to you is when when he's cooking the pigeons he one out of four he's overcooking actually when you're cooking the pigeons you're doing every single one right chef's not saying anything it's all good fine and then the service is like you don't get well done that was amazing you just don't get bollocks okay like you you can see processes or when people are on a section is a busy service and somebody is in trouble and whatever and the first person that the head chef says is tom get on there and go and help them out getting there and you start going or somebody's not called in sick on their on their day off and it's your day off someone's called in sick and your day off and your phone you know someone gets hold of you and says will you come in though they're asking you you're going, okay, so you start recognizing then I suppose as a 20 year old that actually probably I'm doing all right at this.

37:02Tom Kerridge:I'm okay at this. I'm learning. And that means a lot to you. Yeah. Being valued like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly in that kitchen. Particularly. Yeah. Because I don't think I didn't grow up with a father figure and I didn't do very well at school. So nobody ever told me that I was at any point. So you were really good. I love to play rugby, but I was always, I was all right. I wasn't very good at it. Like, you know, and you go, you go, it's okay. so there wasn't processes and points of going you're good at the i was that i'd never been told yeah that you're really good at this i was trying to find something out and i think those processes then where i found an environment i wanted to be in and a place where i wasn't getting bollocked you're like this is great like and you were getting asked to do more then you assume that actually i'm okay at this so 1991 you got you you arrive at carlcourt manor in tetbury um philip britain was the next job at capital hotel philip britain at capital yeah so how long are you doing in each job and how normal is it to be constantly conscious of where the next rung is on the ladder early doors as a chef you move quite a bit as a young commie you're kind of trying to find your feet in places where you can learn engage so in the in the west country where from kitchen so i went from uh painswick hotel culcutt manor and the country elephant those are the three spaces I worked in the West Country that I absolutely that I loved and all three of them I loved.

38:24Tom Kerridge:Cold Cup Manor was it was an interesting space as well. It was great. And but then I moved up into London to Philip Britain to go and work with him at the capital, which is a small Michelin star, beautiful restaurant in a boutique hotel. And it was it was it was a it was a proper baptism of fire of learning curve of late nights, late late nights early mornings quite an occasionally unpleasant kitchen like mood swings dark spaces it was quite a okay this is this is this is now proper this is now proper it's proper cooking i'm not getting i'm not going sometimes i wouldn't go to i wouldn't go home i wouldn't go to bed because i'd finished so late and i was on a breakfast shift in the morning so i would sleep in the laundry room and just on bags of laundry and then just come down and get the breakfast on and do what i like and do i it would be exhausting the pressure to try and get out to get the last tube home because i lived right up in north london and this was in knightsbridge and then if you miss that you have to get the night bus and then you just go fucking hell it's it's now it's now gone midnight by the time i've gotten the night bus i'm not home till 2 30 and i've got a lead i've got to get up again at half four five o 'clock to then get but i might as well just fucking sleep here And those were real moments of going, okay, this is now properly deep in this industry in the early 90s in London.

39:47Tom Kerridge:And I'm in it. And you wanted to be in it. I wanted to be in it. But that was a point where I was going, I don't know that I'm enjoying this. I don't know that this particular space was right. Because the mood was dark. And everything about it, it wasn't in the right place. there was a sous chef there called an american guy called darby who was also like quite unpleasant and just everything about it was just like so the head chef and and it was just and it was just lots of it was just it was all like okay this isn't i'm this isn't really quite the environment for me so it didn't take me long to realize that maybe i'm not learning actually that's not true i learned so much there right i learned so much but i just good and bad i mean you also learned what you didn't want to do and how you didn't want to live exactly yeah exactly you you learn you learn a lot of how to talk to people when do you start entertaining or does it appear early that the idea that i want to be in charge one day oh my god no miles away miles and miles away i count myself i have this conversation quite often with some people um some friends that go like you you an alpha quite an alpha male and i don't think i am i've learned i think i've learned leadership from being a number two from being like i'll quite happily be a beta male and be go right like let's make this work from being from from encouraging and i can stand there like an alpha male and i can be that kind of guy and i can be in that process but everyone likes to think they're that sort of person but when you meet real alpha male like real proper like you realize and i was quite happy to be a number two for so many years whether it was i worked then for steven bull in and a brilliant that was a long shift that was three years three three and a half years and i loved it from opening to almost closing to closing of the space and it was brilliant and i loved it i loved everything about it was just off leicester square and the head chef there guy called john bentham was an excitable crazy lunatic that would turn up and change a dish and then all all in between lunch and dinner and and i would learn so much of it the hours i worked there were way more than anywhere else you were i was in at 6 30 in the morning sometimes i wasn't leaving till 1 30 and you'd be running around in a basement kitchen.

41:59Tom Kerridge:Actually, in winter, my skin went grey. Genuinely, I never saw daylight because I was in there before the sun came up and I'd leave before the sun came up and you'd do five, sometimes six days a week in it and then you would just be, I would just see darkness and then the day off, I would sleep all the way through to like three o 'clock. You'd go, oh, quit. I've got a last hour of sunshine. I better get the laundry and put me washing on and then that would be it and then you'd go to the pub and it would just be that. But I loved it because the energy, I learned so, so much from it. and it was it was mega it was an amazing space i got so many brilliant stories and memories and place that i learned from that stephen bull working there was was phenomenal phenomenal and then you do a kind of extraordinary tour don't you of amazing kitchens i think gary rogers next after after stephen bull i always feel that he he is underestimated in the whole revolution in british cooking and also when when kitchens clashed with television and things like that he was probably the first one that really got me looking at food in a completely different way i remember doing his i do his bread and butter pudding i can't never seen so much cream in my life yeah yeah it's amazing we actually have good to work we have that on the menu yeah yeah gary rose bread and butter he was he was brilliant to work for and in lots of different ways he was incredibly inspiring in terms of um flavor profiles in terms of taking things off a plate there's no need for any of it like if you've got three ingredients that done really well just put that just leave it alone don't do anything else and go okay what about what about garnish it and just do that if it's beautiful amazing spinach wonderful sea bass great butter sauce okay and then the recognition then the ingredients can absolutely shine and that for me has been one of the most influential periods in terms of the way that i cook and the way that i put things on a plate and think about it that's been gary has been was was magical for that but also because him as a human was um he was he was finding his way of being a famous person um there weren't many chefs then that were on telly there were lots of presenters on television but he was one of the first he was a mission star chef that was cooking on the tv that people recognized and he his food style was was different to anything else it was british he had a mission star for doing steamed suet puddings and you go wow and you and you realize him that actually showcasing how wonderful british food is to the rest of the world gary was exceptional at that and that was a brilliant period to work with him and it was amazing like it was it was brilliant and well actually one of the biggest things i take from that is meeting my best mate paul ainsworth who is another great chef with mission stars and brilliant restaurants and amazing hotels that he's opening and all these sort of things paul gone on for but we both worked together for gary paul's a little bit younger than me and he looks a lot younger he's probably he's about five years younger than me but we we met there and i just remember this young enthusiastic amazing guy and we've been best friends ever since and he and that you take moments like that from kitchens when you're in something together and he's hugely inspired by gary as well i love that and and i mean we're going to skip through the next bit because I want to find some time for the new TV show.

45:09But an even more significant meeting was with Beth, of course.

45:14Tom Kerridge:Yeah. So that was actually when I was working at Stephen Ball. So we were working at Stephen Ball. And Beth, I lived in a flat. There was five, six of us that all lived in a flat. We moved up from Cheltenham together. We lived in this big flat in Finchie. And one of them, one of our closest friends, Adam, his brother also lived with us. And his brother was a technician for us, Anthony Caro uh and a very famous artist that have sculpted her um and Beth was also one of the technicians for him she was a um a MIG and TIG welder and bronze caster for for him and it was Tim's birthday one night and it was a Friday night and I come home from work uh I was on an early so I've managed to get on I was off on the Friday night and the restaurant is always shut on a Saturday morning so I wouldn't have to go back till the Saturday evening so there was a Friday night saturday and i was just like i am absolutely done here i'm done like i don't know 70 80 hours this week already i've had no sleep i'm just gonna have the night but adam said you've got to come out it's tim's birthday so we went out we went we went into camden uh went to a a comedy club uh and that's where i met beth so yeah she was there from from that point and then you know this amazing quite mouthy northern artist was like straight away like actually the first thing she said to me was give me three pounds for the stripper it was like all right like great mega like so and then so that was it was kind of it was quite an impactful um uh i suppose introduction yes and significant as well because i don't know is it true do you think that if it wasn't for her you may never have struck out on your own you might have stayed in yeah 100 yeah definitely her so beth always worked for herself but her dad is a self-made man he'd done very well and lost a been declared he was a he's a potter so she's from stoke-on-trenton he had a pottery business in here um did very very well for himself it all went bankrupt and lost it all in the 80s when there was the the electricity and the power strikes you'd have kilns full of everything lose everything like it was just so so he ended up losing everything and then rebuilt another business and he's always always worked for himself has always been that and that conversation between between like working and you make your own luck particularly with him i think you know from and as always filtered through into what beth does and the way that she does it always makes art and make it uncompromised and make it you know become it's always the means to the end of just doing what you want to do having those conversations about setting up a business and doing it for yourself was something that um i just went yeah all right let's do it but i i never really understood the fear factor of it and it's the most terrifying thing you could ever do like it genuinely is like because you are conscious of the responsibilities for other people so we're back to people not food aren't we actually not yet because when you open that business at first it's just yeah there's a couple of you and it's not very many and you so what are you frightened of failure yeah well yeah but if you've got some form of infrastructure and you've built around you some safety mechanisms that work of going right i earn i don't know at that point 30 grand a year or whatever it is and you go that's how much i earn that's that's what i can afford in rent or mortgage that's what i can afford for a mobile phone bill and that's what i could afford for a car or car insurance and you go that's it the moment you open a business for yourself all of that's disappeared so you go well i don't earn anything now what i earn is what i earn it's now up to you you've got to you've got to make this work so it suddenly becomes the response it suddenly becomes all encompassing and it takes everything it takes every bit of your mind there's never a day of you never have a day of the moment you work for yourself there's no such thing as a day off and that's still exactly the same yeah there's always something yeah i'd never thought of it like that so even when you're on holiday if the restaurants are still open that you're still working yeah yeah yeah i'm always on email i'll always i'll always do i've got much better at going i'll structure like an hour maybe during the day and an hour at the end of the night or or something but then it's a lot i used to be able to before mobile phones had cameras on them i used to be able to then just put my mobile phone my blackberry or whatever in the safe and then i would lock it up and then i would do an hour and you go and then put it back yeah but now because everything's on your phone so if you're on holiday you're like taking photos of the kids jumping in the pool or doing oh look at my ice cream instagram look at my and all of those it suddenly becomes your whole life so it's harder to escape which is which is good but also it's not so good but it is where we're at it is just what it is so we're in 2005 now the hand and flowers opens goes goes great guns almost immediately albeit that you sort of maxed everything out to to get it open we're now kind of at the beginning of tom carriage public figure aren't we the success of the hand and flowers yeah that's where it all starts pretty much begins to translate into into all of the things that you do today telly was an accident yeah yeah happy accident yeah amazing it's great british menu so you do so we opened in 2005 the beginning of 2006 when the mission guy come out we won a mission star which was amazing within a year yeah it kind of puts you on the map a little bit as a pub just outside west london that you go okay so it helped drive business which is really good but then um great british menu came and asked if we would compete um because you recognize that I didn't realize then, but it's a cookery competition, and it's so significant, and it's amazing.

50:37Tom Kerridge:But it's also a television show, so they look for characters. So if you're a big guy that owns a pub, this is a great story for telly. I'm going, they're asking me because I've got a mission, so I'm going to cook. And you enter into it, and I spoke to Beth about it, and said, you know, what do you think? Should we do it? And it advertises your business. It's amazing. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah, 2010, and you go, you know, 16 years ago, this will be great. if don't yeah actually the worst that can happen is you come across really bad she said just don't be a dick and i was like okay solid advice yeah yeah yeah which i was kind of like yeah that how like get like a job what i'll do is i'll try and work out what they want and i'll cook well and i and i was quite lucky i cooked and i won the main course which was which was brilliant because it just suddenly it suddenly made the phone ring like bananas it was it was unbelievable it was just the reaction and the impact of that tv show and the business was just phenomenal then it was and you're enjoying the attention in a way because it's you it's not you're not pretending to be someone so albeit that you're in the spotlight you're in front of the cameras you're on a stage yeah in a way that you're not when you're in a kitchen yeah it's still you you're not acting no exactly and you're getting recognized for something that you've cooked so you're getting recognized for a skill set and a trade as opposed to just saying words or doing stuff so yeah all of it was that that was pretty it was pretty mega and full-on and then what happened i went back a second time like they come back the following year and i won the main course again which was absolutely like it was it was amazing it was brilliant to do and what it did then was um kind of solidify a position on television um as well then you know the bbc got us to do a tv show and then we did that and then it kind of rolled from there and i think i recognized the world of television it has so many similarities to the world of hospitality the world of like you know you're a young runner that started at the bottom like the commie chef and you're learning the skill set and the roles and you're doing all the rubbish jobs but then you keep building and building and building and then the person that's in front of the camera or whatever else the the main the main figure actually they wouldn't be there without all of these other people that make it work that all have significant roles of vital importance behind the scenes so i entered into the world of television recognizing that they've all got a real they've all got a job they all have a role they all have a purpose be kind work hard with them make sure that you give them what they want and then and then work with it it's a different trade it's also i've never thought of it like that before but it's also very difficult i mean because you can say why what do you want this program to achieve answer a very large audience but when you're in a kitchen what do you want your food to achieve um well first and foremost you've got to achieve gross profit margin that's like for and then you're like does it taste like does it represent us to guests like it you've go for we've gone through like alchemy yeah yeah sort of it is a little bit you're trying to get all those pieces together how can we make it sounds a little bit more like wizard like but it's not it's not we're a little bit more like trying to build building blocks it's an understanding it is a trade it is an understanding it is a construction site and kitchens are a bit more like construction sites anyway but they are you you are creating something that's built with many different purposes things that front of house team can feel proud about serving flavor profiles that guests will enjoy a cost margin that works like everything that makes it profitable but the main point is that when guests leave they had a nice time and they want to come back and that's essentially what hospitality is that that's what tv is as well yeah they want to watch it next week exactly exactly yeah yeah um and you know you're one of those people now in that lucky position of of being able to make the television programs that you would want to make so some people kind of have to say have to have yes on their answer phone don't they so people ring out and say can you do this and you say yes for people who didn't see either of the first two um uh tom carriage cooks what what what do you bring that's different from what other programs bring so we did tom Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain, then we did Tom Kerridge Cooks Spain, and then this new one is Tom Kerridge Cooks Italy.

54:44Tom Kerridge:And it's funny because there's been lots of Italian cookery shows before. Like, you know, there's been amazing Italian cookery books, brilliant Italian chefs that appear on telly and great. But there never, ever seems to be a shortage of the love and the passion for it. And it's one of those countries that is so deeply rooted in community space areas where they embrace a particular ingredient or what they do in style. And because it's so fair, I did Spain last year and it was magical and amazing. But it's quite an arid and open space. And it's huge, but it's quite similar. italy is very it's a lot of similarities to france in terms of you have got those great big beautiful mountain ranges in the dolomites where you're doing uh cheeses and dairy kind of profiles and then you're going down into sicily where you have these amazing blood oranges or into calabria where there's fantastic chilies and then you recognize that these areas are supporting that particular ingredient and they're so proud of it and they're so passionate about it so i think what we did is we walk we went into those areas it's shot beautifully we looked at the produce and it's almost like old school telly like gary roads used to do and you look back at it and you go gary goes to see somewhere you you look at the produce and you cook something nice and people at home get inspired to cook those dishes the thing about italian cuisine is it is saying it's easy is doing it a disservice but it is but it is connectable it is understandable it's within reach it is within reach and if you buy beautiful ingredients from the supermarket then the the profile of it you can you can enhance and make it work anyway and you go okay so that it works for that point of view and then you go well the way that it's shot we have fun doing it you go i'm going to cook this italian dish i'm probably going to cook an italian book an italian holiday i'm going to go and and it's just old school connectable television that's escapism for half an hour on itv and you just go and you're cooking for the people who have grown or produced yeah that's actually the most nerve-wracking bit i've got to be honest i can imagine it yeah there was a there was a there was a bit where we did the olive grows and the olives were amazing and you there's trees that are 400 years old and you're getting olives from that and harvesting the olives and you know the first press olive oil and we're there having some bread and olive oil at lunchtime and it's just delicious and you think that's the other thing you think of the history and heritage of that tree that's 400 years old think of all the people that have harvested it Think of the generations and generations of people that have had oil from it and things like that that was so connectable and so beautiful.

57:17Tom Kerridge:And then what we made for them, I actually made them a cake. So I made them a cake using the olive oil instead of butter. And it was actually quite interesting because they'd never had it before. They'd never had a cake made with olive oil. So it actually worked really, really well. I was actually one of my most nerve wracking ones. I was like, how does it showcase what they do? But actually it shows their ingredients being used in a very different way. It was beautiful. It worked really well. But that is quite a nerve wracking moment. yeah is that i mean that's your imagination so at every destination you're all you're thinking i know you've got a team and stuff like that but it's on you it's your name above the door just like it is at the restaurant yes so you're thinking from the start what am i going to do what am i going to give them what am i going to serve them do you know what actually i'm thinking about what will people cook at home for us oh yeah i genuinely think transfer yeah what will transfer what will people engage with what will be of course i really want to impress people again isn't it yeah yeah it is yeah i'd like to impress the producers i want to showcase that but in my head i'm thinking that might that's two people that may or may not like what i've cooked for them the reality is that i want a million people to watch it on television to engage in it i think i know your answer to this question and i don't think it's a very good question but i'm going to ask it anyway what what satisfies you most oh my god i did that i mean that is a really good question i have no idea like um that is a really good quote what satisfies me most uh i like it when everyone else is happy i i like it when we're in a good environment and everyone's working well that can be in a kitchen that can be in a in a work environment where we're filming where a film crew's happy i work with the same people every single time because i love working with them they understand how i work i understand how they work what we get we all have a when you when you cramped up in a car and traveling in between hotel rooms and you're turning up into hot fields i mean it is work right it is work but it's also it's not rubbish work it is it is a good gig but you still want to be so i like it when people i like it when people are happy i like it when people feel that they've had a good time i like it through restaurants through the pubs through the whatever whether it's coming around my house we're quite a big social house on a you know i'll tell you i've got we've got 10 year old son who's got loads of rugby mates and all the parents and like we will quite happily have random Sundays with 30 people are running around the house like the kids are shooting each other with nerf guns kicking rugby ball at each other jumping on a trampoline having I don't know outdoor cage wrestling whilst I'm cooking a barbecue you know those kind of things are just like the house just turns up like that somebody else turns up with Russ turns up with a crumble somebody else brings a load of like it just becomes and I like that I like when there's a great energy and i like being around people so that satisfies me i think one of my listen i think one of my biggest fears is loneliness right and i think i do everything i can to surround myself to not have i'm not really a big fan of my own company you know no i'm not i'm i get bored i like being in the car on my own i like having music i like trying to zone i like i like do like a decompression time and that might be at one o 'clock in the morning scrolling on my phone watching the news or like but i'm not really a big fan of going like the idea of somebody like one of our sous chefs she um she she went on a week's walking holiday on her own in greece and the idea of that is like i mean what what are we doing like a whole week on your own like what what are you doing here like i couldn't like like i could i could the thought of that is just like nah it's just i'm out here i'd rather i'd rather be at work um i appreciate you're not ambitious and i believe you despite the fact that you've achieved so much is there anything you haven't done that you'd like to um apart from get the government to change its vat yeah but i mean in terms of career yeah in terms of career i don't think so i i like them all working i can't ever imagine retiring so i don't ever imagine not having a pub restaurant space i don't ever imagine i I don't, so there's not, you know, I do, I don't want, I want free mission stars.

1:01:18Tom Kerridge:I'm not driven for free mission stars. We're just making it work. I like, I like the fact that Sarah, who's the head chef there at the Hand of Flowers now has come through. I love seeing career progression. Every head chef that's in our business has been with us at least eight years. Sarah's been there 12. Tom, I was head chef at another space has been there 14 years. I love seeing career progression. And I love those are the kind of, those are things that make me super happy. seeing people that have been joining us as young people, as young adults, and then stay there now as proper grownups, like, you know, with kids of their own.

1:01:50Tom Kerridge:Those are the sort of things that I really like. They're soft ambitions. I think there's nothing that's driven of going, this is what I want. This is what I want to achieve. This is what I want. I'd like, I'd like the businesses to work. They don't work at the minute. They're not working. And that would, that's, that, that's, that's kind of the drive and the ambition. I have no plans for global openings. I have no plans for. Cause you could. yeah we get offered and we get conversations and have but that then i worry about soul honesty and soul and that's a big thing you open you open in in in in spaces overseas you have to there has to be a realism to it there has to be a real purpose to it and with that you have to have the dna of a team coming through and making it work so whilst we could have that yeah i have no real ambition so i think for those sort of things i think the thing that just keeps me satisfied is people's people's growth seeing people growth and people happy i love it tom carriage thank you i should say tom carriage cooks italy is uh is on itv now thank you very much mate

1:02:55Tom Kerridge:this has been a global production