Espresso: Tom Kerridge - How to Put Your Personality Into Your Brand

0:00I went to go and see Oasis recently and I think out of all the bands, I love, you know, sort of the Beatles, the Stones, Joy Division, Stone Roses. But I think out of actually putting their personality in their art, no one does it better than Oasis, personally. What have you learned? I think you hung out with Liam Gallagher. What have you learned about putting your personality and being like, right, this is a Tom Kerridge dish and it's no one else's? because I think that's easier. That's quite, on paper, that's easy to understand. In practice, that's really fucking hard. Really hard. Yeah.

0:32Tom Kerridge:I think what happens there is you have to learn craft first. So if you think of infrastructure and the way the businesses work and the way that great restaurants operate and the way that there's so many, and I think that's probably best described when people talk about the difference between one Mission Star and two Mission Star. So there's over 100 singular Mission Star restaurants. that are all fantastic and all amazing and all brilliant and they concentrate on consistency and beautiful produce and fantastic service and nice ambience and they're all they're all great but there's a lot of them that if you looked at them a lot of the main courses would look the same they follow an instagram fashion of food and they go like we could yeah that's how we win stars and that's and that doesn't take anything away from them because that is amazing and what they do and the food is beautiful.

1:25Tom Kerridge:And then the difference between one to then a two-star restaurant, what are there? There must be, what, 25 two-star spaces in the country. I think if you put a main course from every two-star chef in front of you, I reckon you'd be able to go, okay, that is, you know, that's Brett's. That's from, not Brett's, that's Daniel's. That's from Humble Chicken. That one's Sap Bane's. That one's us. That one's Claude's. that once yes you know you would be able to go okay you you can see a personality difference and change and then when it goes to three like the lebrey i ate at the other day and you see and it was just on instagram oh it was amazing really just absolutely magical and it's gone from individual unique personality to something that's just next level the same as claire at corey same as simon up at long clume and you say and you just go there's another thing that clicks in and i think what is the other thing would you say is it like i think it's um a whole combination of a an expression of not just great food but also luxury in terms of from a from a from a front of house perspective from a just every every single moment from walking into the restaurant to the moment you leave is being thought through not just gone in had a plate food isn't it great you know there's plenty of mission star singular mission star space you go and have a great plate food and you leave and you go it's brilliant what great but i think when it gets to three side there's everything that is so so different and i think when you're a chef you learn a one star level which is giving you consistency and it's giving you an understanding of produce and it's giving you a foundation of um network of producers and supply chain and everything and then from that foundation you can then start going okay well what now how do I differentiate myself from everybody else how do I become Gareth Ward how do I become you know what do I do that makes me because Gareth for example and Tom Spensley at Ledbury both spent so much time with Sat for example he's coming on actually in a few weeks yeah yeah yeah so they cooked at Sat so they've learnt this amazing infrastructure of brilliant food and understanding how to operate and flavour profiles and grow but then how do they differentiate themselves from that skill set that they've learned to being individual that you then go oh yeah that's garris food or that's yeah and and that takes time and it takes confidence and it takes self-belief because cooking at that level it's very you can become quite okay it's safe it's safe i know what i'm doing we've achieved a mission star to take that next step and become an individual suddenly becomes feels risk-taking feels exposing it feels yes now you're going to get judged on something that's your own and that makes it also like a la oasis you need to be yourself you can't be no one else that is I think it's the best yeah best but how do you do that how do you be the most extreme version of Tom and like move from that one star to two because if it was easy yeah way more than 25 yeah so what did you do maybe we can this way we can bring in the pirate stuff because yeah how's the pirate on a plate maybe I don't know I don't know how to explore it.

4:44Tom Kerridge:Kitchens are run like pirate ships. Yeah. Like if you look at it, they are, you know, our analogy, my analogy of that is that, you know, you can have, they're a complete pirate ship of left field thinking misfits. You know, quite often, you know, people with neurodiversity, people with addiction issues, people who just didn't fit in at school, people that cover from head to toe in tattoos, people that come from, it doesn't matter race, religion, sexuality, it doesn't matter on educational background, economic background. Kitchens are just full of this wonderful eclectic mix of people, a bit like a pirate ship.

5:23Tom Kerridge:They're not all the same. There are so many different people. They come from so many different backgrounds and so many different walks of life. But then the vision is to create this one space where you're all moving forward and it works in perfect harmony. and you try so the skill set of the head chef is to try and make all of these people believe in you that you're then driving towards this greater goal and that greater goal might just be this beautiful bowl of soup the guest is having but you're trying to create that energy in that space and you're trying to drive that belief so that pirate ship thing comes through and then once you can build this foundation this where everybody's working in synergy and in a beautiful motion you can then start becoming your your own self-belief starts becoming stronger and harder and you can start thinking okay how am i gonna what am i gonna build how do i well how would i do that differently and what do we represent you know the hand of flowers i've always been we always wanted to just be a pub i wanted us to be a place where people wanted to go myself included on our days off and represent food that people recognize and i think one of the things that we've been most proud of is the fact that we might be some people's first experience of a mission star restaurant because they feel that it's safe because it's a pub you walk in there's a bar there you can have a pint of beer and then you can have so that sense of being something for the masses something for you know i come from a working class but i come from an estate in gloucester i come from like my people are like builders and lorry drivers and you know people that work in work in trades and jobs that are you know i didn't go to university i didn't go to you know i i have i have never worked at a desk job i've never done i've never had to wear a shirt and tie to wear like i've never like my world is about and then and so essentially i cook dishes that i hope people recognize that they're not intimidated by that they don't feel that they've got a you know obviously there's some form of creativity that goes into it when it becomes at that two-star level but also we there's always safety dishes on there there's always like a pate or a soup or a steak or creme brulee or a there's always something that people will recognize and feel that they're in safe hands but then i think when you start going but then how do we do that better how do we make that the best how do we how do we improve so you start going where there's the base level that's what we're aiming at now how do we make it the best ever how do we make it the best ever creme brulee i mean it's four ingredients right so how do you improve that rehearse it and you practice it again and again and again it's egg sugar vanilla and cream you go right now that you know how do we make that so it's just process on learning a trade practicing it again and again and again so interesting because almost as i said i ate there last week and now seeing it actually speaking to you and that that how that working class background that council estate in gloucester the trade element yeah then sit when you actually eat it so wow that is tom in yeah um still to this the most unique burger I've ever eaten is at the coach.

8:19Tom Kerridge:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's like, talk me through that. So basically the whole idea of that was, How is that you, I suppose? How do we make that look like the most ridiculous burger in the world? How do we make that look like Scooby-Doo, you know, like Scooby snacks at the end of like Scooby-Doo the cartoon, the old school one when he used to have like a sandwich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do we make that look like that? Like, how do we make, like, it's really awkward to eat. It's not supposed to be like a burger like that. We get so much shtick from him going, that's not a burger unless you can do that.

8:44Tom Kerridge:honestly a burger is a piece of like it's a beef patty stuck between two buns can be tall flat whatever you want i mean you can get if you're getting angry about the height of a burger like let's but for us it was then a case of going how do we do it so it's pink in the middle but meets environmental health uh tick boxes so actually that whole process was that put together by nick beater who's now owns starling is a very bright super intelligent so it's about an understanding of the burger mix then cook it on a low slow temperature in a roll so that it stays nice and pink and it's cooked and then we set it and then we take the slices of the burger so they're quite thick and then it's all it's almost a regen process of frying them so it goes crispy in a burger so it stays pink in the middle which means it's beautiful it's full of flavor it's super tasty but it means that from an environmental health point of view there's no oh you can't have pink burgers so we can do that achieves then obviously sits there the coach nick won it a mission star and the team have been able to maintain that ever since and it's like proper stack super high and then you can get layers and layers of different flavors in it so it changes seasonality you can change the burger i think i had like a big was it like either like a pickle like the big piece of cucumber pickle in it yeah yeah yeah so we pickle them fresh every morning and then we'll do braised brisket with it some weeks we'll do smoked cheeses we'll do whatever like and it grows and it adapts and changes but it's always this great big kind of like tall burger with a stick in the top that like you have to pretty much eat with a knife and fork but we serve it on a tiny plate so it's a real nightmare like all of those like it's just supposed to be good fun it is no it's yeah it's unreal like i remember having it with my mom and then it's um because i was going to say is that you're meant to eat with a knife and fork it's kind of like it adds a massive wonderful like whack of sort of theater to it yeah yeah yeah exactly it's about eating out should be about good fun it should be about the noise and the buzz and the clink of cutlery and and people having a laugh and chatting that's what going out should be it shouldn't be about i'm not into i am into temples of gastronomy and i love them but even a prime example i was so lucky to be at the library uh earlier this week from my wedding anniversary and you go there and it's a temple of gastronomy it's free mission stars but the front of house is so lovely and so so bubbly and fun and like the energy and the atmosphere and i was really everyone's having a nice time there's a good you're not like oh god yeah yeah yeah it's actually create energy create fun eating out should be about noise and excitement and people having a good time yes and that's what that coach burger hopefully brings in