I Worked In 9 Michelin Star Restaurants (these are my life-changing leadership lessons) - Jun Tanaka

0:00Thank you for doing this. I had an amazing time with my friend Josh downstairs. I think it was in Feb I came here. Just an array of sort of marvellous dishes. I absolutely had a brilliant time. But one thing I want to start with is I read online that you've got this kind of, yeah, this sort of the ninth manifesto, which is all about culture. And I really want to sort of dig into that today because culture is something that I'm endlessly sort of passionate about. There was one thing on there I was like, wow, that's a good line, which was your favorite restaurant should transcend the menu. And I was like, okay, that's interesting.

0:39So that's what I'd love to start with. And how does a favorite restaurant transcend a menu? And how do you think about that here specifically? That is, you're talking about our vision statement. Our vision statement at the 9th is to be our team and guests' favorite restaurant. Yes. And the reason that I love the word favourite is because there's emotion and feeling behind the word. Dan, if I was to say to you, what's your favourite restaurant, what would you say? Oh my God, that's such a good question. It's the one, I don't know, it's the one that I go back to the most, to be fair. Exactly. But it's not the best restaurant you've been to.

1:24Oh my God. Yeah, so this is Rory Sutherland's thing. Do you know who Rory Sutherland is? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we talked about this the other day. And he basically says, is exactly this point, which is, he would say, your favorite restaurant, when people say, what's your favorite restaurant? They'll usually say the one that gives them the most status. So it'd be a three star, you know, or like, oh, the River Cafe or no. And funnily enough, when you asked me that question, I was trying to think of the most swanky, wanky one that I've been to, right? But the reality is. It's the one you go back to the most.

1:53Yeah. Amazing. It's the place that you feel most comfortable. is the place they probably recognize you. And when a guest says to me, the ninth is our favorite restaurant, that means more than someone saying, the ninth is the best restaurant we've been to. Because I know that we've done something right to give that guest the feeling that we're their favorite restaurant. And also, I know they're going to come back. Because you don't necessarily go back to the best restaurant you've ever been to. The best restaurant I've ever been to was Noma. I only went there once. Sure. My favourite restaurant, I go every week.

2:32It's something you've been to Noma and Nando's again every Thursday for a cheeky Noma. But I think that's so true. And, okay, so then how do you get people back? I know the food's wondrous. It's astounding. I think, obviously, I've read online, like, you sort of went for this sort of chill New York kind of, I think New York inspired a lot of the restaurants, what you were saying. But how do you get people back in? Like, what are the ways other than the food, you know? Yeah. I think the most important is making people feel that we're genuinely glad to see them. And that is really important. So when people arrive at the restaurant, it's that initial contact.

3:18it's greeting them in a warm genuine way because people love to be recognized in terms of I see you and you are important to us and we will treat you as friends family and that feeling that you get in certain restaurants where you go there and we're kind of they're super professional they do everything right but there isn't that warmth and that connection and I think it's really important make the connection with the guests. And if they feel that and the service is good, the food is delicious and they feel comfortable, they will come back. And I think it's about making people feel seen and valued and relaxed.

4:11And I think it's the same for the team. The mission, the vision statement to be our team and guest favorite restaurant when we do exit interviews with all the team and then when they say this is our favorite restaurant that we've ever worked in that says so much because it means that we've done something right means that we've created an environment where they feel fulfilled valued inspired and that is what we're here to do and so it works both ways in terms of the team that work here and also the guests. Scene valued. I love that. And like do you have like a system behind the scenes like of how you track these regulars?

5:01Because again I've spoken to you know there's a lot the guys at Fallow and Roe Jack and Will use like this AI thing to track all the guest reviews and stuff to make sure that they've got this some sort of system behind the scenes. And I love systems behind magic um because i think um there's there's a great book by will godara which is unreasonable hospitality it's a great book i mean it's a prodigious book like i've read it like twice and i just think there's so many lessons in that but i think the whole system behind like they'd they'd managed to get the waiter to sort of figure out what what that guest was doing that day by like a a question which was genius and then they'd find a moment of surprise and delight and I think what he talks about in the book is the couple who'd the waiter overheard them and they had this amazing trip in New York they just got married or something and they were like oh but we haven't tried a hot dog and then he goes outside gets one of the proper New York hot dogs from the side of the street but there's a system behind that like how do you guys sort of think about that with your customers and the ninth experience we don't take it to the level of 11 Madison Park because they had a, I believe they're called Dreamweaver.

6:17What was the Dreamweaver? Sorry, like the... They employed someone specifically to come up with these ideas, a full-time person. It's written in a book. Yeah, yeah, Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver. Yeah, yeah. I read the book a couple of times, and they were employed just to do this. In reality, I mean, you can't do that. Yeah. We use our EPOS system, which is the reservation system. you can put all the details of what the guest drank the last time, whether they prefer sparkling or still water. Those small things seem significant, but when they come, you don't ask them, you just give them fizzy water.

6:55That makes an impact. Yes. You know, it's these really, really small things. Oh, you had a bottle of the, you know, the Californian Chardonnay last time you were here. Would you like that again? Or would you like something different? Yeah. And it's those small moments where it takes them by surprise. Because everyone knows all the information that we have. But when someone does that, it takes you by, like, it's a pleasant surprise. You feel seen. Yeah, you feel seen. You feel valued. It's the intangible beauty of going to restaurants, which I love, is you get that feeling of, like, oh, my, yeah, this is sort of that moment of escapism.

7:37come off the streets here and we're good yeah sorry um come off the streets you know outside where we are on charlotte street it's just bubbling with people who are super busy on their phones emails you come on here it's like that small little thing can just dissipate all the kind of the stress um when you said on the staff side like what have been and i think look no restaurant's perfect i think you learn so much from mistakes like with this we've learned from loads of mistakes um what have been some of those exit interviews where they've given you sort of harsh feedback or corrective feedback that you've that's been super valuable and actually made this the whole culture stronger because as i was saying to you earlier as i think culture and everyone i've spoken to on this podcast is it's a sort of a moving organism it is it's not something you just like you stick on a on a wall and it's like employee of the month it has to move and grow and sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's ugly.

8:32Yeah, speak to me about that. You're right. A culture has to be moulded. You can't let a culture just happen because it won't be good. It has to have like clear direction and a clear vision of what it is that we want our culture to be. And then we mould it and then we learn from the mistakes and then we trim it and we shape it into something that we want to be. This is really important. And on feedback, every four months, we sit down with the entire team. And this is for us to share feedback with them, how they're doing, where they need to improve. And also, it's a chance for them to give us feedback.

9:14The managers from the people they lead. And for me, I will get feedback from them about myself as well, which is super important. and we asked three questions what is one thing i can do to make your work better what is one thing i can start doing to make your work better and one thing i should continue doing so it's stop start and continue so that's one thing they feel that i should stop doing to make their work better what has that been over the years oh it's been a few things yeah yeah i'm not excited i'm very chaotic yeah and so when i'm again i ask all these questions self-sigrant but um so i will say something and then like what we kind of like today right you saw us set up so for listeners we'd set everything up and spend about 45 minutes saying everything up facing the window jim goes downstairs to get a coffee he's come back upstairs i'm like we've moved every fucking table out of here and completely different that kind of stuff is quite chaotic yeah um but we've got the teams growing and I want to sort of have those difficult conversations and say, look, where am I going wrong?

10:22What am I, you know, so what have been the things that have been with you that have, how do you annoy your team, I suppose? Yeah, it's, I think before, I'll give you a couple of examples, but before I give the examples, we have to create an environment where people feel safe to give honest feedback. How often is it that we can give feedback to our bosses? Honest feedback. And no, there's no repercussion. This is really important because otherwise we will get a diluted version or we won't get anything. So the first thing is we need to create this culture where people genuinely feel safe to be able to give honest feedback.

11:05And the way we do that is us ourselves as the managers or the head chef, myself, we have to show vulnerability. And what I mean is when we make mistakes or when I make a mistake, I will apologize for it. Hands down. I'll give you an example. We had a team briefing and it was to do with every single week, each of us, every member of the team does a presentation for the entire team once a week. and we take it in turns and this is a way of sharing knowledge also it's really good practice for the person giving the presentation because it builds confidence everyone at some point in their career will have to speak in front of an audience well also public speaking is biggest people's greatest fear exactly what how big is the team 25 okay brilliant yeah and then during when we're talking about it one of the assistant managers said I don't want to do it I feel really uncomfortable and when she said that the briefing I was slightly annoyed and I questioned it and I kept questioning her in front of everyone else and after the meeting she got upset she started crying and then I reflected on what I just did and I thought I could have done that one-to-one afterwards so straight after i i sat down and said i'm really sorry i shouldn't have done that in front of the people and actually it's recognizing where we go wrong apologizing for it and by doing that we're showing to the rest of the team it's okay to make mistakes apologize learn from our mistakes and move on so once we have this environment where people feel safe to give feedback then we can sit down and ask them what is one thing i can stop doing yeah because i think what ultimately the way they do it in like the corporate world is 360 feedback which is basically a symbolic survey if i'm being frank because i did one before it's like like it's obviously we don't so they don't have to directly face i think there is obviously some value in that as well but i think if you're a smaller team i think there's creating a real environment where you can be safe and i think vulnerability equals safety like if it's coming from the top or wherever it's coming vulnerability equals safety and i think um and it's harder one-on-one to give someone feedback face to face so much more difficult than writing it down anonymously and sending it in 360 and it's it's more useful because when we write feedback down and we send it in an email or a form sometimes it comes across very harsh because it's just words and when we're giving someone feedback there is expression tone yes which gives a whole different meaning to the feedback and i think it's really important to do it face well it's almost you know you said you've got to be your favorite restaurant for the customer and your favorite restaurant for your team it's like if i went to if i went to a restaurant from a consumer perspective and a fucking robot came up and gave me my dish yeah that shit again the other side playing it around it's like feedback shouldn't be done like robotically through an email you should you get all the nuance and the texture and the depth and the body language and it's i think linking it to your favorite restaurant that way and also you know for the employee side it makes total sense what have you yeah god i was gonna say what are some of the things they've um um given you feedback on like over the years my sous chef this is maybe a couple of years ago when we sat down she gave me feedback and she said I understand certain days things go wrong walking fridge goes down that month we've lost money and I can see that you are stressed about these things that happen and she said but when you talk to me and interact with me on something different I wish that that won't come out in the tone of your voice the kind of the the words that i say not that i was shouting or screaming but that impatience that stress comes out when i interact with her because i'm thinking about these other things that's going on and she said i wish you'd stop doing that and i reflected on it and she's right and i changed and about six months after that no less than that probably four or five months afterwards we sat down again I asked her have I improved and she said you've stopped her and then two things happen then my sous chef realizes I've taken on board her feedback listened to it and actioned it and also from my point of view I believe that by doing that I am a better person and a better leader because of it well that goes back to the it being an organism and then molding it.

16:07You've got to get these little bits to sort of make it malleable and changing. What are some of the other talents on that document? I think one is like one team. One team mindset. One team mindset. I love that. I went to Paul Ainsworth restaurant in number six and they put me on the table and I could see into the kitchen and it was brilliant because it said, sorry, I'm just putting these questions, up um um it said like we make it happen dot dot dot we make it happen together and i love that word together at the end um and i'd love to know how that reflects as like one team mindset like unpack that again because it's one of those things you can stick on a wall but yeah in actuality it can be every man for themselves definitely you know with one team mindset a significant change in how we create that happened during the closure when we had the fire we had the fire we closed for eight months and during those sorry i'm gonna have to go back a few steps so that's getting me get me going so how did the fire start like like to tell me when you get that phone call your restaurant's burning down like that can't be joyous that was pretty bad where were you when you got the phone call i was in bed it was three o 'clock in the morning oh my I had two missed calls.

17:30And on the third time... What year was this? Sorry, this was like... 22, July 22. Oh, my days. So we're kind of out of COVID at this point. It was, yeah, it was the year after COVID when everything was booming and the restaurants were doing really well because people were missing eating out. And I was in bed, two missed calls. And the third time I picked it up, obviously I'm annoyed. Yeah. I said, who is this? and he says it's alan from the fire brigade oh my god you've had a fire don't worry no one's been hurt do you own 22 charlotte street and i literally felt sick and he said you need to come in how long are you going to be i said one hour my wife says what's happened and i said we've had a fire and she groans and she says you want me to come with you and I said no just go back to sleep and then I get out of bed and in my mind I'm thinking I'm not going to rush because there's nothing I can do about it I had a shower I went downstairs made myself an espresso called an Uber and I took my time and then in the Uber my mind's like bracing and I arrived on the Charlotte Street and the fire engines, there was two of them, around 25 firemen, cordoned off, lights everywhere.

18:55They call me over and Alan meets me, takes me through the building. And the fire started on the top floor in the kitchen, as always the kitchen. And because it was on the top floor, the way the fire engine dealt with it was they broke a huge hole in the roof of the building and then they put all their hoses in and they flooded the entire building to the point that all the stairs, they put sandbags on it to stop the water just flowing down. It was water dripping from all the ceilings like rainfall. And then he took me through the building and then around five o 'clock in the morning, we're standing out on the terrace and then he says are you okay and I'm kind of in in a daze and it kind of feels surreal and he hands me like a key and he says you're in charge now are you okay and then he leaves he leaves and that was kind of the start of the the fire and what what's going through your head at that point like the fire engine goes off like everything you've built for years is suddenly completely eviscerated and you know decimated like that like you've gone from being calm in the uber to actually probably seeing it that must be a bit of a juxtaposition like yeah like taught me go in sink into that a bit more like what that feeling was like i was like you said a thousand things rushing through my head my heart's pounding it's quiet outside it's dark no one around summer or winter it was uh summer okay so the light the birds were really like yes Okay, that kind of makes it even more sadistic in some respects.

20:45But it's a vivid memory. And I sat downstairs on the bar on the ground floor, and there's water all around me. And I got a sheet of A4 paper, and I started writing everything in my head down onto the piece of paper. Who I had to call, what I had to do. And I just sat there and wrote this big list and then started making the phone calls. That's how it started. And by getting it out of my head, somehow it made it easier. And then the rest of the team started arriving about eight o 'clock in the morning. And then we started the whole process of insurance, renovations, cleaning the whole place. and yeah it was um it was a difficult eight months and coming back to the eight months of closure what we did was going back to the one team mindset we knew we needed to keep the team engaged what we did was this happened on a wednesday morning at 3 a.m on friday jim my business partner and i caught a meeting with everyone because we knew the first thing we had to do was to make sure the team felt safe and they felt secure.

22:05We called a meeting with all of them and said to them, do not worry, we will protect your jobs. Amazing. And that's before we knew the cause of the fire, the insurance, and because we knew that ultimately the business is the team and when we come out of it, we're going to need the team. and from that point it was how do we keep them growing engaged how do we maximize the time what we have to the benefit of the business the team and everything so twice a week we got together we organized different training sessions from visiting suppliers vineyards growth mindset yoga everything that we thought would benefit the team and what happened was that was the most time the front of house and the kitchen spent together and they got to know each other so much better than when we're working because we're working in different parts of the building and then i noticed that coming out of it when we reopened eight months later how people interacted with each other was significantly different because there was more of a connection and an understanding so i thought we need to carry on this idea that's why we came up with the idea of every week someone within the team gives a training on for the entirety the other thing is making the most of when we have lunch and dinner together.

23:49We sit down together in the restaurant, front of house and the kitchen, 11 o 'clock at lunch, 4.30 p.m. at dinner without fail. This is really important. And it's bringing those two departments together as often as possible is really important because in restaurants, there's a divide between front of house and kitchen. But also just for context here for listeners, is the kitchen's upstairs here. It's like two floors up, isn't it? So like it's literally geographically, it is massively different. Exactly. And as I said, I've got Michel Roux coming on next week. So I read Albert Roux's biography in prep for that.

24:29And in that, he was sort of saying great kitchens, sorry, great restaurants, the job, it has to be sort of a symphony between front of house and sort of the kitchen. And as you were saying so rightly, there is this link. and the sorry divide and you've got to be the orchestrator getting the two to dance together yeah um which kind of links your one one team thing exactly um in terms yeah keep going the other thing we do is cross training chefs doing a shift on the floor as a waiter and the front of house doing a shift in the kitchen yeah they love it do you think they like what's some of the learnings from that do you think What does that...

25:13It gives them an appreciation of what the other side does. Yes. Because we don't understand. Unless we see it, we don't understand. As a chef, they don't really understand what a front of house does in terms of during a busy service, how much pressure they're under. And it gives them context and understanding, which is incredibly important when it comes to one team mindset. it we're going to come back to the sort of the ninth um manifest it's on your website isn't it it is yeah i'd highly encourage anyone listening to this no matter what whether you're in food drink restaurants hospitality to look at it because it's it's really impressive and really like i can tell it's almost like you've chummed it out of your head a bit like when the fire was booting off right yeah a lot of thoughts gone into it um we'll get back on to that but in that manifesto you do say at one point you'd worked in some pretty horrid or not horrid but intense and I think on general hospitality has changed to a much kind and nicer um you know probably more balanced place but I think everything you do comes from um you learn from like good bad and ugly from everywhere you work yeah like as I said like the startup I worked at culture was sick for like three years I was like this is absolutely banging bit of a buzzer comes in it gets decimated so actually by i've looked at that person i'm not gonna say who it is but it's like i've actually learned a lot from them because it went wrong you know um i think you actually probably learn more from like what when what goes wrong than what goes right sometimes definitely what out of the kitchens you worked in you you sort of where were some of the most sort of intense or hard places you worked that really really made this your your sort of piece de resistance that gets you out of bed in the morning i'd love to sort of go into that to really understand why you're so obsessed with this you know yeah i don't think i worked for seven different michelin star restaurants during my career and there was which ones just for content yeah because there's seven different marco pierre white restaurant marco pierre white le gavroche uh chenico uh les severs the capital hotel the square and i went back to the capital with a different chef cool yeah and it was a mix of really hard places and also places that were amazing in terms of the culture that they built and i wouldn't change my cv for anything the culinary knowledge that i gained was invaluable from all of them.

27:56The hardest kitchen would be Chez Nico, which was, and Marco Pierre White. Chez Nico had two Michelin stars at the time, and they went on to get three Michelin stars. Nicola Denny was a lesser known chef than Marco Pierre White or the Roux brothers. But when I started, there were four fathers of gastronomy in this country, The Rue Brothers, Pierre Kaufman, Nicola Denny, and Marco Pierre White. And working at Nico's, it was difficult because before that I came from Le Gavroche Kitchen. And Le Gavroche Kitchen was a five-minute walk from Chez Nico. Le Gavroche, three Michelin stars. Chez Nico, two Michelin stars within five-minute walking distance.

28:50So there was a rivalry. and having worked at Le Gavroche, coming to Shane Eco, I wasn't the most popular person. Oh, right. It's like a Spurs fan going into an Arsenal pub. Yes, exactly. That's a great analogy because it really was like that. Wow. And they wanted to show that to begin with. And so why did you make that jump? Did you know it was going to be that hostile going into it? or kind of what was your because I love the food you love the food yeah and you wanted to learn exactly and it didn't last you know the the really hard part was the first I would say four months take me to the apex of that like what was the what was the hardest bit you went through in that four months the hardest the hardest bit was as the new boy you're on the vegetable section and then being on the vegetable section we have the fish section and the meat section on the meat section we had the head chef the sous chef on the fish section we had two senior chef to parties and I was the guy on the bed section and we have to coordinate service and time everything so we're ready to come up onto the pass where Nicola Denny the chef owner would stand taste everything what they did was they worked together to cook the meat and fish so quickly i couldn't keep up with the garnish they do this to wind you up sort of thing or like to put me in the shit right and then what would happen is the meat and fish should be ready in front of nico the chef owner and the garnish wouldn't be ready and then he would get really upset and start screaming and shouting at me and the worst part of it was feeling that i'm on my own that no one's looking out for me and i think that was the difficulty and i've mentioned this before it it was i used to wake up in the mornings and then because i was so scared to go into work i used to cry and then my dad luckily I was leaving with my dad at the time my parents and he would say look you could leave or you can get it together and get into work and I got it together and went into work and within three to four months I got good enough that I could keep up and so it was a really good learning curve in terms of my skill and I understood as the chef owner why he would be screaming and shouting at me because I was slow I wasn't keeping up and I get it and I completely accept it and I guess going through that part of it was learning the importance of making sure that people who work here at the ninth feel that they are supported and they're part of a bigger team on an island yeah yeah that's important but again i don't regret it yeah i really you know it's contributed to um me as a business owner and also it's taught me resilience and going through those experiences in those kitchens I don't regret it because it has made me more resilient and when you own your own business you know this there it's like a roller coaster and you go through really difficult times yeah and then if we don't have that experience from beforehand what can we use as support and a foundation and thinking I got through this I can get through this yeah it's I mean this thing i talk about so like completely like there's so much on that like i think the first thing is the ambiguity and the sort of um yeah go for it um is is the ambiguity of of things and i think what's interesting when you were getting that um hair dryer treatment on the reg and it was like fucking hell like i'm getting bollocked it's so interesting when the when the thing's on fire here and you're so calm and i'm almost linking those things together because you're just like just focus on what you can control it's like super interesting how this has come to be and i think you're right like i think your goal is to or someone your goal is to always be anti-fragile which is the thing i just i talk wax lyrical about which is this great book by um and that's interleb and he's basically like you need to be anti-fragile you need you know black swan events which is your fire yeah or you need things to really stress you i mean ultimately boils down to what doesn't kill you makes you stronger um but and i i'd love to sort of go back into the um i can't really pronounce things um what's the restaurant when where you're getting the bollocking on the reg oh shit sheniko sheniko sorry yeah um so you're there's because there's a lot of people doing this i think sometimes when you know what you've got to do and you know what your vision is you know what your purpose is there is this lonely period no matter what you're doing it's like as you say your old man says you're crying you could go you could go and do whatever you go to another kitchen what keeps you keeping on uh first question second question is like how did you get better like how did you speed up like what were the actual practical kind of lessons from that what kept me going at that stage i think support from my dad yeah sure helped a lot and also i wanted i just wanted to be able to probably pride ego yeah a little bit i didn't want it you need to break me right yeah and yeah i think it was a combination of both it was the support ego it's the pride thinking I'm not going to let this break me and that was it and in terms of how I got better that's just day in day out just pushing myself to be better and being more organized really thinking about how do I organize myself during service in a more efficient way what can I do to be that much quicker and really thinking about it and i think when we do that on a consistent basis and think about everything that we do and making it as efficient as possible we get better that's just the fact what are some of the other learnings or underrated learns you took from nico and like because i'm assuming eventually it did get quite good like after Yeah, after six months, it was fine.

35:57Six months. That's still a long time. I was there for two years. Yeah, exactly. So like afterwards, what were some of the lessons you've picked up? Because I say with this culture thing that you're so obsessed with, there's good, bad, and ugly. There's probably good, bad, and ugly in this right now. It's not like I want to like, you know, pull out sort of like really click-baity things. I just think there's lots of interesting bits. What were some of the like good learnings from him? the good learnings was i think i'm trying to think now when there was a transition between the old head chef and the new head chef right while i was there they had three different head chefs well actually correct two different head chefs there was the initial one that when i started he left and the person who took over was a chef called eric chaveau And I worked for him later at the Capitol and I was his sous chef.

36:54And then when he started, then he built a team around him and it was completely different. The team was more together and it wasn't so divided. And I think the way he did that was everyone respected his knowledge and ability as a chef. And he led from the front in terms of the way he cooked. Just out of any chef that I work with, he extracted flavor from ingredients better than anyone else. And when you see and work with someone like that, you just naturally are drawn to them. How would he do that? You know what's absolutely mental, mate? London is literally the greatest foodie city in the world with so many absolutely banging, delish restaurants opening on the reg.

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38:37Drop them an email. Fillmytables at eatclub.co.uk. Fillmytables at eatclub.co.uk. That will get you straight through to them and they can help, please let's turn those empty tables into profit.

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39:40because i interviewed natura franco from natura the fed yeah i interviewed him last week yeah and he was showing me all these mad vegetables and like he was like opening up like uh a blood orange he's like this is a piece of italian accent this is a piece of art i was like this is so sick but he was talking about all the chefs the best chefs are the ones who can pull out really extract the ingredients how did how did he do that like what was some of the ways he was slightly different i think his skill was definitely sauces the meat sauces the butter sauces and he learned that from pierre kaufman he worked for pierre kaufman for four years right he was his sous chef right and kaufman is all about flavor yes and this is what eric took from pierre kaufman and it's the way he make makes his sauces to give you an example a jus is made generally from the bones of the animal that you want to make whether it's lamb duck beef you roast them off then you put some vegetables in it or shallots and mushrooms and you cover it with alcohol stock you simmer it and you cook it out but the way he caramelized the bones they had to be perfectly golden brown all over because that is the flavor that goes into the sauce the shallots had to be perfectly caramelized golden so it's sweet and has flavor no kind of dark bits because that adds slight bitterness it's all those tiny small things that he put together which made a difference in the final sauce and that pulls it that pulls the let's the flavor the veg sort of you know dance yeah exactly wow um take me to your time with marco like take me The first day you met him, what did he say to you?

41:30What did that feel like? The first time I met Marco was... So chronologically, this was... Marco Pierre White was 1997. Seven. It's after Gavroche first, Chez Nico. After Chez Nico, I went to the capital first time. After the capital, I went to a place called Les Severs. Le Severs was a one Michelin style restaurant and the head chef was a French chef called Joël Antinus. And it was the first restaurant they were doing fusion cooking, French and Thai mix. Wow. So he worked in Bangkok. Wow. And what happened was, this is where I first met Marco. Right. Because it was owned by a Japanese company.

42:18The chef, Joël Antinus, was an employee. and what they did was they sold the restaurant to Marco without telling Joël Antones and this is how it happened I have been working one year we go on our break in the afternoon where was this restaurant just for context on in Mayfair in Curzon Street okay yeah yeah in London yeah and I come back from the break and then there is Marco Pierre White sitting upstairs in our reception and Jorau, the chef, is nowhere to be seen and I get a phone call in the kitchen from Jorau I pick it up and he says to me they've sold the restaurant, I'm heartbroken I can't come back and that's when I first met Marco.

43:13I went upstairs because he called, he asked to see everyone individually and I sat down with him and that was our first introduction. Wow. When he bought the restaurant. That's mental. And. So what did that feel like as your walk, as like when you sat with him? Can you remember what he sort of said to you in that first discussion? Like, because were you planning to stay on at this point under Marco's, was he going to step in as the head chef? No, he had multiple restaurants by then. He had a head chef waiting upstairs to come in, take over. Okay, with you. Yeah, he had one of his guys. So he had his little empire by then.

43:53Okay, that was... Exactly. Okay, okay. And he was interviewing each of us in the kitchen to see who wanted to stay and who wanted to leave. So what was it like meeting him? How did that feel? It felt, I mean, it was all very sudden to come back from your break in the afternoon, realizing there's a new owner, new chef. But when I went to speak to him, in my head, I thought this is an opportunity. Because? Because I wanted to work in his three-star. Because I wanted to work in his flagship restaurant. and this I felt was a stepping stone to get to his three Michelin star restaurant. Was that Harvey's or was that?

44:36That was the restaurant market, Pier White. Yeah. This is at the Hyde Park. Yeah. This is when he went from Harvey's to, it was called the restaurant. Yeah. And that's where he got his third star. Right. Okay. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I read his book, White Heap. It was a while ago. Yeah, that's mad. and so what would you because what's the other book was it White Heat because it's probably in Wandsworth Common isn't it Harvey's where Shaper is yeah because I basically get well that's where I get pissed up is on those two oh is it yeah yeah yeah the Althorpe and The Hope is where all my mates are and I just love walking past it because you've got all those famous pictures of him with the sort of the fag yes iconic aren't they like so iconic yeah I mean it's basically that those pictures I think is what basically inspired like kind of Bourdain to get going into the rock and it called it caused the rock starification of um of chefs for sure um so yeah under his guidance and tutledge like how did you get from from this sort of um french thai place into restaurant marco pierre white like what was that journey like yeah i stayed at le savers under marco pierre white yeah for another year and then what happened was every time I saw him I said Marco I want to work in your three-star and kept reminding him and then the opportunity came when I believe someone walked out of the kitchen and then he called me up and then he offered me a sous chef position there and I said yes absolutely and then that was how I started in his three-star at the restaurant and it was he wasn't the head chef there though right or market yeah he was there every service luncheon in oh really okay he had his head chef robert reed yeah but he was still there on the pass lunch wow that was his baby like you probably okay so what are some of the lessons he taught you about uh yeah taught you about culture

46:43i don't think the lessons i learned at the restaurant wasn't about culture I learned how to cook really well. He used to call his kitchen SAS of kitchens. Yes. It's been in his book. And he's absolutely right because it was a group of young, very talented, highly motivated, skilled chefs cooking the best food in the country. and it was an amazing experience to work in there because his philosophy was from my perspective is perfection at any cost so all that mattered was the food on the plate doesn't particularly matter how you get there but in terms of the the dish the ingredients it had to be absolutely perfect and that obsession of trying to find that perfection is inspiring you know they say that um genius and insanity is quite yeah quite similar and to work at that level it was six days a week crazy hours and to consistently work at that level day in day out for that many hours you learn a lot about yourself what did you learn about yourself that i have what it takes to be able to do that and there are times during i was there for a year there are times that i wanted to walk out for sure but i stopped myself from doing that jazz what the incident when well yeah some of the incidents i think to begin with when i first started was I was there as a sous chef or one of the sous chefs I was learning from another sous chef because he was moving from the larder section to the fish section and then within the first week I was there he walked out which meant that I was learned there was no one to teach me and I was learning as I was going along normally there's three people on the section it was down to two so I was doing a job that I didn't fully know at that time and also doing an extra person's job and it was a nightmare I mean genuinely it was incredibly um yeah it was I I don't I can't I did still don't forget that feeling and yeah and during that probably for the first month i i wanted to walk out you know because i couldn't do it i really couldn't i was struggling every single day i used to be fearful of coming into work and and i got through it you know and and then you learn something from you about yourself to be able to to well yes out of that yeah it's the sas you said it's the sas training of kitchens which or SAS of kitchens um and the food is incredible food's incredible I think one and I think one thing um like do you think you can have and again I'll ask this obviously like I've got a very negative voice in my head about my work like I'm fucking so critical like I'll do a podcast and someone I'll be like that was absolute shit like it like it I've just I've got that nefarious voice in my head like do you think you can work at that level and that sort of level of intensity and perfection without like a real kind of mendacious voice in your head i'm like you here i will question things that i do i yeah for sure working there because there is a really clear set of instructions on how everything is done and you're executing that it's different because what you're talking about is it's your podcast you come up with the questions the setup the ideas yeah and when you execute it you question your decision to do those things yeah that decision is taken out of your hands in terms of working for someone like market py because all the recipes the way you run the section the way it's plated everything is decided for you what you're trying to do is trying to replicate that yeah it's different totally yeah so there isn't that voice in the head questioning so much am i doing it right or wrong because i knew what was right and i knew what was wrong because i have the recipes and i know marco's expectations so there wasn't that voice in my head like an imposter syndrome i guess that you're talking about it wasn't that it was more about can i physically and mentally put up with this every single day six days a week for however long i think it was more to do with that yes no it's interesting and i suppose the

52:16yeah i'm just trying to work out like would marco or something like to be when you are the chef and it's your creation i think you the negative voice comes with it i don't think and probably the reason i don't know i'm this is me sort of teasing something out is that the reason some of these chefs go ballistic is they've got their vision of what they want in their head and if it doesn't meet that then they're going it's going to go 100 yeah okay yeah what did you pick up from well actually quickly on that because um there was a thing in albert's book which is like when he talked about something going out the past it was like aim for a 10 like we'll take a nine um an eight's okay seven like you can't send out and i just think it's a really nice way way of framing the curse of perfectionism because perfectionism will make you well it does mean neurotic i'm like make you just try your best yeah you know you'll be like why the fuck you don't and i think it's a really nice frame of like just aim for a 10 nine's okay eight oh good whatever and then um i think that's a really nice way of kind of um slowing down those sort of voices of imposter syndrome but um what did i think you can learn stuff from osmosis from people like not necessarily like um and i get this from guests like pre and post the interview like you know um uh like so franco from natura right so he gives us a veg box um as we're packing down i'm like oh my god this guy the way this guy's putting this veg box together is literally like an artist like this guy genuinely sees fruit and vegetables as art um um julian metcalf from uh preto monjenitsu yeah before the interview that guy's on the blower to some some he's got get off flights japan he is trying to find this one like kobe ingredient like the weirdest um ingredient for one of their seaweed thins or something he is maniacal about that and he's not stopping as soon as the pod's done he's like cheers straight away so we map the gun like this is but it's that level of obsession i suppose with you mate we're like oh we like we need to clean that window it's like that looking at things what did you pick up from Marco from like osmosis, like more just kind of observing versus him directly saying to you like, you know, do that with the fucking onion.

54:30Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a good question.

54:38When, I'm not sure this answers the question. When I was with Marco, he has this way of making you feel very special. we were all terrified of him at the same time we all wanted his um attention you know and he has this way of making you feel you are the center of the world you know and we and we all love that how give me an example of that it's there's it's not But I don't think it's set things. I think it's the way he kind of looks at you and talks to you and pays attention to you. And because of who he is, when we got that much attention, you automatically feel quite special. and I think that was his charisma, I think, had a lot to do with it.