Kicked Out Of College, Michelin Restaurant Fire, Stage 3 Cancer | The Life of Jun Tanaka

0:00And then I get a call around two o 'clock, three o 'clock in the morning. And then I pick up and I'm slightly annoyed. And he says, oh, it's Alan from the Fire Brigade. Do you own 22 Charlotte's Shoes?

0:21Which four restaurants are the best? And he gave me that list. So I wrote a letter to all of them being told, if you have a conversation, it's got to be about work. in any situation, in any crisis, is focus on today. Don't worry about why this happened, because there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, I struggled. For the first six months, I found it really, really tough. I was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. And that was a complete, you know, it was a complete shock. And they sold it to Marco without telling the head chef. And this is how it happened.

1:02Olly Fawcett:Jun, welcome to All It Takes. How are you? Very good. How is the heat treating you? Because it's been a very warm summer. It has. How has it been for you? It's been all right, actually. Yeah. Because last year, for home, we got an aircon unit and it's a life changer. Really? It makes such a difference. I'm very jealous of that after the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Well, look, I'm so excited to have you on the show. You've got an amazing story. um there's so many pieces to it an amazing career as well um but before we get into all of it what i like to do on the show is just a bit give a little bit of context between the early years of everyone's lives i mean you were born in new york of all places and then lived in london so tell me what growing up was like for you like give me a give me a rundown of childhood in your world yeah born in new york it was all to do my father's job he got kind of work placement there i only spent one year and then from there i went to japan just outside tokyo place called chiba and we spent six years there and when i was seven we came to london right and i've been here and that's because of his job yeah wow he used to work for mitsui a big engineering firm and they moved around for different offices wow and um yeah coming over here at seven didn't speak a word of english i can still remember they literally took my brother and i he's older a couple years older and plonked us inside a primary school and we just got on with it and um i think it's the best way to learn the culture learn the language yeah and um i've yeah we've been here ever since did you i mean you must be how old are you six or seven did you have a context as to why heading to london was it was it just like we're in a new place now let's crack on i knew that we're moving for my dad's work right i can still remember we had packed all our bags into the car and looking out the rear of the bag leaving our home waving to our to our friends really yeah i can still remember that that's insane and um yeah settling into life in the uk yeah it was a big change yeah but when you're young you adapt really quickly yeah what was the biggest change for you biggest change friends yeah um not being able to speak the language it's tough but actually i don't remember feeling different or being treated differently by my friends around me everyone was really welcoming and yeah i i settled in really quickly amazing and i mean i heard you say maybe in an interview or another podcast that food was kind of an influence for your mom your mom was yeah big into her food and big into her cooking tell me about that she's a very good cook yeah she didn't teach me cooking right i think i learned the love of eating from my mother because she's such a great cook and growing up family meal big part of the day all of us we used to sit down and have dinner and it was really important the actual kind of shift i guess to wanting to make a career out of it was from my dad because he was in london working for a big company and then he'll go out for a lot of business meals yeah and he ate in all the best restaurants in london and at that time this is 1989 1990 i was gonna say what was the food scene in london like well there was only four decent restaurants in london i'm exaggerating but probably not they are the father of gastronomy in this country the roux brothers uh-huh pierre kaufman margot pierre white and nico ladenny do you know nico ladenny no i know the name yes i know the name he's been set on the profiles before yeah yeah and um he had eaten all those restaurants and i used to love hearing the stories when he used to come back and i'd ask him what did you eat and he'd go through all the dishes and I'll be intrigued and then when I was 19 when I wanted to get into cooking yeah and to be honest with you at that time I was at college and I remember the moment I decided to become a chef and it was more a lack of choice really I do because it was a letter that came through the door from my college I was at college to do a three-year course and the second year was work placement and after the first year on the summer holidays i remember getting a letter my dad was there i opened it and inside it said dear mr tucker due to your lack of attendance we won't need you back at college for the third year and my dad looks at me and says right what are you going to do and it was at that point i thought the only class i used to turn up to was on a tuesday which is a cooking class and i thought okay let's give this a go why was that the new class you turned up to because it was the only one i enjoyed yeah interesting yeah so for you it was kind of out of necessity was it you need to how your parents were they very much job career education is very important like what was the kind of structure internally would you feel the pressure from them to do something that mattered or was it a job's a job my dad is very much kind of career focused right my mom when i was growing up she was a housewife back in those days that's just japanese households right she became an antique dealer later on when i left left home that's cool yeah that's really cool and um so work was a focus for sure and they pushed me and yeah i just rebelled i think at school you know and um when i was 19 thinking okay i've just been kicked out of college what do i want to do i love eating and um i enjoy the cooking class i used to go to once a week so i said to my dad which four restaurants are the best and he gave me that list so i wrote a letter to all of them and i said i'm a student bit of a lie looking for work experience and um could i have a job and i was so naive you know to write to those restaurants with zero experience and expect them to write back but they did well two of them did le gavroche and sheniko and sheniko said thank you for your letter we don't have a position for you yeah legaros said come in for an interview and why do you think they said that not sure i really i should have asked but i can't even remember what i wrote in the letter you know and i turned up and i i this is 1990 i can't remember who interviewed me it's either michelle roux or albert his father yeah and i said i love food i love eating and they gave me a position which is just crazy and to be honest with you i didn't realize how lucky i was to get that opportunity because this is a three michelin style restaurant one of only two in the country at the time walk side in the gavroche yeah and they gave me an opportunity and it's only years afterwards i realized how lucky i was because at that time waiting lists for jobs two years two years yeah and a lot of it was free like you have people come work there for free for stages and stuff like that yeah so they so that conversation you had with them do you remember walking into that interview at all do you remember like the apprehension for it because where were you living were you living in london at the time my parents were still here fine and so i was living with them yeah and then i remember the very first working day of le gavroche because i was so nervous but the interview somehow is a bit of a blur i remember the office i remember going in but i can't remember the actual interview itself yeah and um yeah i started work there in 1991 when i was 19 i mean so for everyone that doesn't have the common test of the guy of rosh and of course it's recently closed so it's by the end of a chapter but just to give some context to to everyone i was born in 96 so i didn't get to see these times respectfully to you but in terms of like the level that that establishment was at yeah and i guess the innovation in a way that that establishment was putting out can you try and put it into context as to how people were seeing that restaurant at that time le garoche and the waterside inn yeah and by the rue brothers albert michel and they were the founders of gastronomy in this country before then british food was how you would expect right how people sometimes think it is now yeah yeah yeah that's so strange they still think that it's mad i saw i saw an interview the other day where someone i can't remember who it was but it was like a quite a famous um actor actress i was watching like chacha and they were like your food still sucks or whatever and i'm just like how can you say that yeah like i think in london is like even from my memory of when i when i was a kid tjo friday's and frankie and benny's and like that crap so like now like the stuff that's happening in central the the fight back against you know taxes that kind of thing like it's insane scene but so back then yeah there was none of this none of what exists today didn't it wasn't there no and these guys are changing it yeah they were and when i applied for the job they had three michelin stars it was without question the best restaurant in this country right and to be given that kind of opportunity you know it's there is an equivalent now because there's a lot more michelin-style restaurants back then there were only a handful of michelin-style restaurants threes or just generally just generally just generally yeah and um

11:21the it's probably to my benefit that i was naive because i don't think i would have been able to actually go work there if i knew the real like how incredible this restaurant was yeah because i would have been too nervous i think and um a lot of it when i went there was just over my head you know they put me on the canabe section i turned up with what i thought was suitable chef attire because it's the one from college completely the wrong thing is white trousers white clogs i wore this white lab coat white neckerchief and a trilby hat because you imagine walking into the gabbroche fish monglers yeah or like i don't know a cricket umpire or something and that's what they gave you at college yeah oh shit exactly and i took my mom's best kitchen knife and i walked into a three machine style restaurant the gabroche and they put me on the can of a section and it's weird what you remember but i remember the very first job i ever did in a professional kitchen is to julienne three heads the celeriac really yeah to cut into match stick length yeah and it took me all morning i cut myself 20 times and the guy who was next to me working would literally just pick through it so it's too thick too thin it's not long enough and that was a real wake-up call and i was thinking i'm just chopping up some i didn't even know what salariate was yeah this root funny looking root vegetable most people in the uk didn't know what it was that point either and then uh just thinking wow this attention to detail and we started at seven in the morning i got to around three in the afternoon and i remembered turning around to this guy and saying when's the afternoon shift coming and he looks at me with this weird expression and says we're it and then i was like okay it's going to be long hours and it was a real a very quick wake-up call did after the first day yeah did you feel that there's an opportunity here or was it more i don't think i can do this definitely not there's an opportunity here right i didn't think i can't do this

13:48i think part of it was i need to do this i think was it a welcoming environment for you

13:56Olly Fawcett:like in terms of was it because a lot of new you know kps and yeah young guys must walk and girls must walk into that restaurant and not last a day not last a week and in those times right is am i right in saying that yeah it's a tough environment were you were they happy to help and and teach or was it like we'll challenge you and see how much you want it what was the environment like it's tough yeah you know it's 1991 in the three michelin star it's a completely different era of restaurants and it's so there's so much work to do right and everyone is just chasing kind of you know trying to get all their work done on time it's more of you know we need to get this done and people don't chit chat right at all i remember once trying to just have a conversation about what you do on your days off being told if you have a conversation it's got to be about work so it's it's very work focused and the good thing is I learned discipline very quickly and how to work in a professional kitchen you know the way you dress you had to be clean shaven clean well dressed ironed chef jackets and the way they work was so incredibly professional and when you have a start like that it really influences how you work for the rest of your career do you think because kitchens are very different now and yeah they're onto it do you think that kitchens not being like that now means that there'll be less discipline and a different wave of talented chefs coming through in let's say the next 20 30 years you know guys that are walking into restaurants now and girls yeah they're walking into restaurants now and it don't have that kind of tough start regiment military and vibe to them do you think it's going to create different chefs i think when i say kind of regimented it's it's the way you turn up to work right and so i think you still get that in restaurants definitely i think the other side kitchens are you know less aggressive and um i think more welcoming than they were 35 years ago and um it has changed and and for the good you know i think it's it's a good thing but you can still keep all those um disciplines that you've learned now like the culture that we have at the ninth is completely different it's something that we focus on and it'll be good to chat about later yeah before but we still you know i expect people to be you know iron jackets when they work to be super clean and when they do their mise en place to be precise so there are elements that you should always i think keep because if you work like that the end product is going to be better yeah i think it's the culture stuff that has to change and has changed for the good yeah every single chef that's come on this podcast has said the same thing of like it had to change yeah it has changed because everyone knows that yeah but it's more you know speaking to paul aimsworth or tom akins the guys that come on this show they're like there's a reason why it had to change yeah and i think everyone going through that can see it what was your favorite um part about working at la gravage favorite part yeah was there something for you that you would always carry about working in that restaurant because i think that's one thing with chefs it seems that as i understand and speaking to you guys you kind of have built through the locations you work and i love the name of your restaurant so much i think it's such a great story but through you know starting in le gavroche what do you think there's one thing that was something you really held dear and took for rest of your career it's a really great question if there's one thing that i took from le gavroche

18:28i think it's the way they do everything is the way you know

18:38it's the small details the way we cleaned everything after service i mean clean yeah it's it's just so much attention to every single part of it how you work how your chopping board is placed your knives and are sharp and it's not only about the food it's about how you work and the environment that you're working in and looking at the entire um picture yeah and i think that's something that has stayed me stayed with me throughout and i haven't worked in a kitchen like it since to that level really yeah to that level in terms of not the food but how you work

19:22Olly Fawcett:and how you show up to work seeing it close seeing that decision being made it was last year now wasn't it i think january last year yeah january last year yeah what did you think of that what was your impression and how do you make you feel i mean it's yeah it's like i mean it's an institution i understand why i think the lease came up and and i think renegotiation i think saw in one of the articles that it was going to get put up to quite be a pretty penny and didn't make sense yeah and

20:03i don't know it's a difficult one i admire michelle for doing it because it's it's difficult to quit when you are on top right yeah and so to think okay yeah yeah it's time i think it takes a lot of courage to be able to do that because most people don't you always go out and we're on your way down and or just before people realized your yeah yeah yeah and um yeah i think it is sad to lose somewhere like that but nothing last so ever and they had a good run you know very good 1971 was it i think yeah i

20:47Olly Fawcett:thought it was the 70s yeah yeah incredible um after you left how long were you actually at i brush for just over a year just over a year what made you leave other opportunities because i know you then went on to a collection of different different restaurants but why did you leave such a an amazing place after i think i guess for people listening especially perhaps the younger generations is a year a long time in a restaurant back then or was there a lots of you know you do little stints here and there to learn can you just explain that so one year back then was this a length of time which means that the kitchen didn't break you really yeah you know they're hard kitchens yeah and then when you do a year anything less than a year people look at it on the cv and said okay you can you can handle it but once you do a good solid year then it was part of it was you know you can do this kitchen yeah and the reason i left was i've always wanted to work for nicole denny and the reason for that is my dad said it was the best meal that he'd ever had at shane nico and he had moved to 90 park lane which was a five minute walk from le gavroche and so i went for a trial there and they gave me a job only because i'd worked at le gavroche yeah i was gonna say did le gavroche on the cv open up many doors for it did yeah everywhere really yeah and again i only really appreciated that years afterwards and yeah working in at shane eco uh it was two michelin stars at the time it went on to get three when you were there no year after i left fine yeah and i stayed there for two years could you feel the difference between three and two at the time yes because like i actually don't know if I've ever spoken to someone who walked straight into a three-star restaurant from day one I think might be the first um but like going from that level because there's a big difference between those two right like a lot of people now know that I feel like stars and the way Michelin works have become become more well known now but for you being in the in the back of that engine room going into a two-star I know obviously you respected the establishment the chef the whole picture but what is the difference for you at that point as a chef going into that environment where you don't have you know i don't feel like you would have carried ego saying i'm from a three-star into a two-star but what is the real difference in the back of that engine room

23:24i've only been cooking for a year so when i went to le gavroche i wasn't a good chef at all and i found chenigo really hard i mean really difficult yeah harder than le gavroche yes really yeah because at le gavroche i had no experience there was no expectation from anybody about me and so they weren't easy on me they were really kind of they left me alone because they understood that you know i was new going from le gavroche to sheniko completely different right you've just come from three star there are two stars striding for three does everyone know this as well yeah of course yeah you know you've got a chef from the gavroche and i think part of it is oh he's going to you know in some ways maybe think he's better

24:19Olly Fawcett:i mean this is the 90s in kitchens in london like there's lots of that ego but i wasn't i was literally i was the worst chef in that kitchen by a mile and yeah it it was it was tough i mean it's only one year of cooking yeah they put me onto the veg section smaller team much smaller there was 12 chefs i think at le gavroche at the time they were 18 okay and yeah i struggled for the first six months i found it really really tough yeah was that the style of the way that what was the what was the thing that was the most difficult for you just the amount of work right yeah the quantity of mise en place which is the prep that you have to do before service and i was kind of left on my own so you're on the bed section and there wasn't anyone supervising you whereas at lagavarache there was always someone supervising me i see and yeah it was um it was a tough tough kitchen did you ever want to get out of that like was there any other thought that i can't do it yeah first six months yeah for the first three probably every day is is that something that i imagine in your kitchens now there are people struggling and they can come to people and say i'm struggling that's the cultural difference right in terms of like you're talking about how kitchens have changed i feel like that's something that exists now did that exist for you guys back in the early 90s could you go and say i'm struggling without it being you're not good enough then no no no and you know work culture wasn't even a term that was used back then and that was the norm in any business you know it wasn't just our industry no the good thing is i got through it and then it taught me resilience which is incredibly important you know because you can't teach someone resilience you can only experience it and it it was really important to to go through all that and actually push through it because it it does it builds your resilience and that resilience is something that gets you through not just work but through life and i think that it helped me 100 and that's why i value it a lot that experience yeah because then after that you you i'm not to not to kill the story for everyone but your current restaurant is the ninth restaurant you worked in yes and obviously you were in a technical hotel for a bit right but the rest of your kind of the next 10 years from this the early stages you went on to work in seven other different restaurants all right yeah as you're going through that in the night this is 90s and noughties period what's happened going back to the london food scene what's happening in the scene at that time that's so exciting because you're kind of in the the very much the run-up of the scene yeah restaurants becoming busier new places open you end up working with marco etc etc like can you try and explain the energy that was being put into the industry at that time i think the industry at that time was being led by those four chefs right yeah and they were what everyone was everyone was looking up to and back then you could either eat really cheap or top end there was nothing in between yeah right so if you wanted to have a really decent meal you had to pay a lot of money for it and that's right and there were a lot lot of similarities so it's not as diverse as it is now so those four restaurants you know the toncler and sheniko le gavroche and marco pierre white they all had lemon tart on the menu all of them same yeah but all different recipes and they're all french there weren't any high-end japanese oh actually there might have been one high-end japanese but definitely no indian chinese italian nothing so predominantly classic french restaurants and

28:47i think that is the reason that those places had queues of people wanting to work there because there was there were less um decent restaurants right and um

29:07i think also it was just the turning point where being a chef was considered a good career you know really i think so i think it was marco who changed that

29:20Olly Fawcett:yeah it was so was it seen what was it seen as kind of before that it's not a high-paying job or it's not respect like what was the i don't good is probably the wrong word i think before marco it was very it was the rue brothers it was pierre coffin so it's kind of the french um very serious

29:47yeah career whereas i think marco what he did he made it accessible to the younger generation and he made it for want of a better word he made it cool yeah he made it cool in sex right like it

29:59Olly Fawcett:was those times yeah you might not know the answer to this question but as you have you kind of explained the time i just thought about it it's why do you think the rue brothers and pierre koffman even came to london because there wasn't a scene here so what do you i mean you feels like you lived through a little bit of that like do you have a your perspective on that as to why is it because it's london like what's the reason is it because there was nothing there i'm not sure it's just i just think about it now i'm just like the french influence is so interesting because i didn't know it was just i mean i had an idea that it was a high french influence but like in that time the french cooking when you think about it i know we're next-door neighbors with france but it's like i wonder why they come in they came into london you know is it the money is it the the growth of that it's such an interesting thing when you think about it especially you're saying there's no italian or spanish or those aspects but french just came in so quickly i don't know uh pierre koffman actually worked at le garoche for a very yeah so yeah and yeah i have no idea maybe opportunity yeah yeah so you actually went to work for markup you worked at two of his restaurants i think the restaurant and the okram yeah tell me about that experience i'm sure you get asked about it a lot but how did you find working in those kitchens compared to the other one i mean you've at this point you're going through the list of four but you know what was that experience like for you because i feel like that's one of the kitchens that most people now know about and talk about yeah its reputation what was that experience like in in your world difficult yeah and um but valuable i think i wanted to work there so what happened was i was working in one michelin-style restaurant okay called les serveurs with a chef called Jirel Antones, incredible guy.

31:53He was the first chef to introduce fusion cooking, French and Thai. So he was the executive chef at the Oriental in Bangkok. He trained him in France under the Rue Brothers, which is a Michelin star restaurant. And then he came to open Les Severs on Curzon Street in Mayfair. And he got one Michelin star and it was a fusion of French and Thai. And I love working there.

32:21Olly Fawcett:my favorite restaurant working for someone else was there really yeah and then what happened was it wasn't making any money right it was owned by a japanese company right and they sold it to marco without telling the head chef and this is how it happened shit we were i'd worked there for about a year and then we go on our afternoon break and then breaks in the afternoon in the 90s are you sure it was a break yes yeah we used to get out you know um have a have a cheeky pint and then come back and then um when we came back jurel antonis who was the head chef he wasn't in the kitchen and then marco was upstairs in the in the reception this is the first interaction you're having with marco yes right yeah it is and then um i get a phone call into the kitchen on the kitchen phone and joelle antones chef saying that the company has just sold the restaurant marco and marco's yeah bought it basically what the fuck yeah do you know why that happened was it just because the business wasn't doing well yeah needed to upload it yeah exactly business wasn't doing well and then they they wanted to sell it and they didn't tell joel the head chef because they didn't need to you know they he didn't end in the business he's just an employee right exactly yeah and and then when people found out there were it was pretty much all french kitchen in there there were three english guys myself if considering english and two others and i think half the kitchen walked out why did they walk out because if they just felt disdained to the way it was done and yeah right yeah and when things change people people walk out sure and it was handled really badly by this company for sure and then marco asked to speak to each of us individually and then i met him for the first time yeah and sat down and he was really charming said i've heard good things about you there's opportunity here if you stay and then i said to him i want to work for you at your three star this is what i said so he had a three he had a three he had the restaurant at the time got it yeah he had that he had the canteen and he just bought the servers and his reputation is kind of massive in the industry at this point yeah yeah so you know who you're talking to and yeah and he said if you work here yeah when an opportunity comes you can come work for for the for the three star and so that's what i did i stayed there for another year constantly asking marco when can i come when can i you know move to three star and it happened when somebody walked out of the three star and that was my opportunity to go there.

35:31Olly Fawcett:What was your, I know a lot of people will, especially, and I know Marco and those days are so well, like a lot of people speak about this. You know, we're not the first people to have these conversations, right? And everyone's so fascinated by it and everyone's so, you know, interested by, you know, watching those documentaries when he's in Harvey's and all these sorts of things. But for you at the time, what was the personal reason why you wanted to work in his three star? because he was the best yeah there wasn't anyone in the country cooking what he was doing and i wanted to work for for the best that's pretty much pretty much it and do you think that everyone understood what you needed to do to work with him at the time so in terms of so i imagine other chefs are coming and going right and i imagine everyone's like you know when you've got someone who is at the top of the game whether you're in sport whether you're in business whatever it is people are like i want to be around that person did you considering you started in the three-star and you being through different kitchens at this point did you have an idea of what what you were going to need to do in that year working in the other restaurant in order to prove yourself i knew that it was going to be hard yeah

37:08when i went there i wanted to

37:17learn what he knew i wanted to work for him because he was regarded as the best chef yeah everyone knew it was the toughest kitchen in the country so i was mentally prepared it didn't make it any easier at all and there were days that i hated going into work but i knew that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and it's something that i literally begged him for you know for a year working at lisaverse yeah asking him so there was no question that i will do my time there yeah when he told you it was going to happen what did that feel like i was really nervous because i wasn't prepared because it was literally he called me in the kitchen and said i want you down here for service for tonight shut up because

38:14Olly Fawcett:someone walked out oh fuck of course yeah yeah so i get a call in the saver's kitchen yeah saying uh you're in you're at the restaurant tonight do you think it's better it was that way then like we'll see you in two weeks and you like build up for two weeks i think it's better to have notice you know when you've got something really big coming up yeah it's to mentally prepare yourself but i feel like the way you've had your career to that point is the ability to just react in the moment must be so good like you've dealt with so many i imagine every day you're dealing with things going around things not happening etc and because you want it so much i don't know i'm always one of those things where it's like wanting something to happen yeah i much prefer it being a surprise that is now happening then like cool it's gonna happen in a month's time that really exciting thing because that's when you just allow the overthinking that's just for me yeah the overthinking settles in and you start like doubting and like you know we all do we're all human um leaving marco's kitchens and moving on that feels like a big decision now you said how much you wanted it um yeah what made you to make what led you to that decision i had a opportunity in new york at danielle's yeah wanted to go back because i was born there never had the opportunity to work spent 12 months there yes yeah when i was one and um i applied for a job at daniel's in new york which was the best restaurant in new york at the time was it wow and i went there for like a long weekend and i remember going into his restaurant having lunch there on my own

39:56no what happened was first i wrote a letter to him so i wrote a letter saying this is my cv i really want to working work with you in new york and i sent it i remember this it's coming back to

40:10Olly Fawcett:me by um by fedex by fedex because i wanted to make sure that danielle got it because he's got sign for it yes yeah i got it and then i called him up in his kitchen on the day that i knew he was going to get this letter and he was really grumpy some random person calling him up from so i don't know if you got my letter but and he's like well i don't know and um i said i'm coming to new york next week yeah uh i'd like to meet you and then i had lunch there and he was super charming and i got to meet him he showed me around the kitchen and i was offered a position there so i handed my notice to in to marco uh because i had a new um position at daniel's but handing my notice in at marco one of the scariest things ever when what year is this this is

41:121997 i think it is wow well you so you were a prince if i imagine about doing it and in my notes yeah i was terrified everyone was and why is that because you wouldn't know

41:27Olly Fawcett:how you would react okay yeah and um

41:34so i thought about it for days really yeah i thought about it for days and then i remember i thought right i'm going to do this the office is at the back of the kitchen i remember walking up and he's on the phone and i knock on his door and he said marco can i have a word he said yeah sit down i said marco i've been offered an opportunity um in new york i'd like to have my notice in and he looks at me and he says daniels and i said yeah how did you know that he said and he just kind of smiled and then he accepted my notice so i worked a month

42:14Olly Fawcett:notice and i left on good terms i was like oh great did anyone else in the kitchen know that that's where you were going like no i think he guessed because you know i'm working for him in london yeah moving to new york who am i going to work for it's going to be you know daniel's and he was charming about it and yeah that was it so all of your and snap prevention was just in my head in your head yeah wow and how long is the notice period back then are you working there for a couple of weeks or you've gone there and then one month i gave one month yeah there was no contract you didn't have contracts in a contract really well you just started working that was it do you really have a contract didn't have a contract did anyone have contracts back there i don't know i didn't everyone else did amazing so heading to new york for you obviously london new york are similarities to it i didn't take the job you didn't take the job no because i didn't take the job because i at the time i had a french girlfriend and then when i talked to her about going to new york she said no so i didn't take the job so you didn't never you never made it to new york yeah i never made it to new york and then so i left at the end of the year 1997 and i was supposed to start in january 1998 so then i thought okay if i'm going to stay in london what am i going to do who am i going to work for and that's when i went to see phil howard at the square would you ever have gone back to marco after quitting would you go back and sort of tail between your legs type situation and be like no it never crossed my mind really no i'd left i've done my time yeah yeah i left on good terms yeah i wanted something something new yeah because at this point the square was yeah really growing i mean this was like peak square times no when it got its second star yeah and that's when you joined yeah and for you again like the the the cv you've had is extraordinary at this point are you feeling like a sense of luck in terms of getting these opportunities are you feeling like i'm just working for the next one every time because it's 10 years seven restaurants right what is what is allowing you to get open these doors like what is the thing that you think in your mind people are saying yes to you do you know what i mean like what what is that element in you in your head it's the cv really yeah it's working at le gavroche marco's les servers i only ever worked for michelin star restaurants so when you have a cv like that and also i don't i never jumped around i made sure that i did at least a year right and when you have that it's yeah people look at that and say okay will at least give you a go yeah yeah and um yeah walked into the square kitchen i loved working there it's great phil's food's just delicious i mean it's the kind of food that you want to eat regularly and um and it was really busy as well there are two stars they're doing 100 for lunch and 100 for dinner yeah it's super busy what was the biggest difference between phil's kitchen and marco's kitchen at that time on those times i i found the square a lot easier just because we're working six days at marcos and then i go from that to work four days a week because you do um eight shifts a week which is four doubles right so i had three days off as opposed to one day off just that in itself makes your week so much easier yeah and in terms of the level if you're coming from three star to a two star so there's a difference there as well yeah what was it about phil was exciting for you it's food you know it is the kind of food that you read on the menu and you want to eat and it's the kind of food that you can really connect with right and that you want to cook you know he's influenced a lot of chefs his style and i think he has a way of making

46:48Olly Fawcett:just food delicious would i be right in saying that marco his food was more simple in terms of he he talks a lot about simplicity now i don't know if that's what it was like back then um but it's kind of simple elevated eloquent what was it was food was phil sorry more technical and more like innovative or was it like how would you describe the two different styles of food it's not technical the square right i think it's all based around flavor there was more at the time his food had more mediterranean influences right because that's a big part you're cooking now right it is yeah yeah so phil always had pasta on the menu marco never had pasta on the menu um marco's food was definitely french on the plate i would say marco's food well to say it's simpler it's not because certain dishes were quite complicated yeah and quite technical yeah um there was a lot more precision in everything that went onto the plate at marco's like a lot more you know some things completely unnecessary but we did it we measured vegetables with a ruler to make sure they're all the same same size or you know when we're using chives we'll only use the very tip of the chive which is tapered and um there was one dish ballatin of salmon it's quite famous right so it's a salmon roulade two fillets of salmon you poach it it's covered in herbs and then it's perfectly pink a slice of that you do a canal of caviar on top i can still remember this and five brochets or tiny little canals of fromage blonde which is a cream cheese and i remember these little canals had to be perfect they are that big not your ice cream scoop like this with no crease in it so you had to get us like a small note with one hand get a scoop yeah stick it into the palm of your hand and you used to roll it in the palm of your hand until you get a perfect kind of torpedo shape yeah yeah and it was so difficult to do it's impossible when i first started i took a container fromage blanc back home at night when i got home at midnight and i'd be practicing at home in bed to try to get this perfect cornell because you used to have five of those around this yeah then you have five segments of longostine in between the fromage blanc three grains of caviar on each three grains three pieces of caviar on each of the longostine and two chive batons perfectly positioned at the very tip of each of these fromage blanc and a piece of wooden sole in between the longostine of fromage blanc so you'd sell like 20 portions yeah like at this point do you is the passion there to understand why the detail is so important yeah because like and i don't know this but i imagine there are people dining those restaurants that don't understand what's going into these dishes sure and there are a lot of people that laugh at it even now like laugh at it and don't get it but for you when you're going home with a container of fromage and you have to do it but but like the passion is there for you to do it like what is how how do you get so attached to that for you from your side like what is it is it the people around you that just give you that energy is it the job satisfaction of wanting to be at that level because it's it's a hell of a commitment right and there are not a lot of people that have done it will do it yeah would even think about doing it um and i feel that this is where for me a lot of chefs and cookery and and that world gets so misunderstood because it's like the the rulers and the tv show you know what i mean it's just this whole like idea of like oh they're just they're in their own heads about it and they care for no reason but like for you at this time you're in london it's the top of the game you've been everywhere and you're still putting that amount of passion in where does that come from and why that comes from within yeah yes i think it's the drive i knew that i was working for the best chef in the country and i wanted to be able to do to contribute to that you know to be able to do that kitchen and to cook at that level and that meant that i needed to sacrifice and i needed to push that's it yeah and that drive it just came from within just supernatural is it like it's super natural to you it was just a natural thing that was coming through it wasn't forced it wasn't there was no desperation and do you know what i mean in terms of like there's no one having to push you you're then you're pushing yourself forward yeah there was no one pushing me yeah i wouldn't say it's natural you have to push yourself it doesn't feel like natural because when you say natural it's something that is kind of in a way easy but it isn't easy you have to push yourself is that the bit mentally and physically yeah is that the bit that made marco so good is that it probably was more natural to him in this i guess the thing with marco because everyone every chef i've ever spoken to that's worked near him around him in those times all they speak about is how good he was and it's kind of one of those things for me it's like because i mean you you can obviously still taste his food but i won't unfortunately be able to taste his actual food yeah do you know what i mean which i'm sure you did many times and if you think about a singer or an athlete or an artist i can kind of like now experience why they're so good you know i can see it and feel it yeah and what i guess i tried to do with the marco thing is like what is it that made him so good like it's trying to understand that aspect because i've watched the harvey's documentaries yeah i've watched the old school stuff and i've i'm fascinated by the whole thing i've heard from so many other chefs talking about about him and the influence and and you were right there and it's almost trying to put a pin on the thing just i'm not making sense like it's really i just find it fascinating how highly regarded he is yeah i don't know what that thing is you'd have to ask get him get him on the podcast you have to ask him yeah no exactly yeah he's he's naturally gifted chef for sure there's no question i think it's more than that as well i think it's his drive for at that time perfection yeah and also it's the the people around him as well you know when when he was cooking at the restaurant the chefs around them they were all amazing amazing chefs right because you can't produce that quality of food without the team around you and he had some of the best chefs in the country working for him and i think a combination of the two allowed him to be able to do what he did yeah i want to speed the timeline a little bit here sure you went to work at was it the pearl i did what made you take that because that was a hotel right it was Melbourne yeah so you'd obviously done a lot of Michelin like Michelin was your blood and that level what made you take because it was an exec chef opportunity as I understand it yeah huge opportunity right in many ways what was the level you were at before taking that opportunity so I was like a head chef in a local restaurant okay yeah and that opportunity came to you and did it feel like a very big deal yeah it did yeah so my first head chef job was in fulham road um place called chives um four four in the kitchen got nice review from fay mashler and then someone was working at that hotel yeah he knew me and just called me up and said there's this opportunity you want to take it and i turned up and you know it's a beautiful five-star hotel met the f &b director and said we're trying to do something different and i thought to myself yeah it's an opportunity for me to grow you know a bigger team from having four in the kitchen to having i think we had 15 in the kitchen yeah and um and also it's to do with being able to i guess

55:30See what I could do with more resource.

55:35Olly Fawcett:Yeah.

55:40And yeah, it was, it just felt right at the time.

55:43Olly Fawcett:Just for those that don't understand the difference, exec chef, head chef, what's the true difference of those two things? It depends where you are. Yeah. But in a hotel, for example, in a hotel restaurant, what is the real difference between those two things that you're going into? So your head chef in a restaurant going to exec chef in a hotel. What are the differences there? I think head chef in a restaurant, you're just worried about the kitchen, kitchen team, the food, the food cost. an exec chef when i took the role i was looking at the service side of it as well and looking at all the numbers and worrying about the whole picture rather than just specifically the food the kitchen team and the food cost and that was your first exposure to that yeah the business side of things yeah was it natural for you was it an area you enjoyed no it wasn't natural for me at really no yeah never kind of yeah i was never taught that and having to worry about the service side of it as well obviously you have a restaurant manager but yeah it's something that i learned along the way was an enjoyable experience learning along the way yeah it was i stayed there for eight years yeah so i must have enjoyed it i should have left earlier actually do you think yeah looking back it's not i don't regret it but i think the last two i was in my comfort zone dangerous yeah i think it is but you also started the food truck catering truck at the same time done your research yeah yeah because i love this idea because this is around 2009 2010 something like that around those areas so it was before i left pearl i started with mark really good friend of mine yeah the food truck because you joined pearl in 2004 2000 yes around that time and left in 2012 yeah so the food truck i mean at this point you've got a pretty big job yeah in terms of pearl yeah pretty important job like lots of responsibility yeah tell me about the food truck like why that was actually mark's idea my friend yeah so he came up with the idea and said let's do like a converted airstream and do british street food because back then there was no street food culture yeah yeah i don't remember it no i was at this point like there was nothing there there was like maybe a subway on a street corner is the closest thing you get to it and the reason we did it was we came up with this idea or mark did for london restaurant festival right and then we he thought it'd be really cool to do british british street food we borrowed an airstream with a kitchen inside it because it was only for a pop-up to begin with for two weeks in covent garden okay and then we came up with three dishes with all british produce like gastropub food okay but served really quickly right and how do you do that inside essentially a caravan and then we called it street kitchen and then we did it for two weeks yeah and it was really successful and the feedback we've got was brilliant and then mark said let's make this into a business and um and i said look i'm still working at pearl there's a limit to how much time i could commit to this and he said fine and then we you know refined the food started the company and found a location on broadgate circle liverpool street and then we put the airstream on there and started serving lunch to the business people around there and it was it was doing well you know we were serving up to 200 people for lunch and it was 200 people out of caravan there was four of us and we figured it out it has to be like a production line and we had three dishes we had like like a chicken salad um like a british version of a caesar salad and then we had hot smoked salmon with beetroot and we had i think a mushroom dish and all for around£6.50 each.

1:00:08And then people will queue up and then we'll just, you know, put them in boxes. And we really thought about the product, how quickly we can get it out. And there wasn't anyone doing stuff like that at all. Not, you know, if you wanted lunch, it was either a sandwich or it was, you know.

1:00:29Olly Fawcett:There was a meal doing knocking around back then. yeah no deals and that kind of thing like in terms of you want a lunch like around around the city i'm not sure um there's a lot of prat a lot of sandwiches yeah yeah they're doing like going from the reason why i love it is because it's so outside of what i thought you would do do you know what i mean like the the cv you've had yeah the job you had at the time yeah being in the street amongst the people harry matt direct feedback cooking food that was giving different emotion to people different need to people different satisfaction did that kind of like boost any creativity and any like did it reinvigorate anything because you sort of said towards the end of pearl those two years were comfort yeah comfort period i imagine the pearl job was a different job you're doing the business side you're maybe spending less time on the stove like those sorts of things doing this street food thing what did it give you that influenced the main job yeah or did it give you anything i think it gave me to be able to the first thing is it's a completely different way of thinking right to be able to produce food first of all at six pound fifty and make a margin on it but use incredibly good british produce yeah and to make it very tasty to be able to serve that many guests in such a limited time because for lunch people don't want to wait no so the way you think about that is really different and you have to be creative to be able to do that and you know to have that close interaction with the people that you're serving because they'll take the box you can they'll just stand somewhere eat it yeah and you can see they're really enjoying it yeah and you don't get that back in those days there were no such thing as open kitchens so it's very separate from you know the restaurant and the kitchen it's always separated no chef's tables or anything like that not back then wow and to be able to see that connect with the guests or customers yeah it was really good what happened to it in the end what happened with the whole so i resigned as director right uh when i when was it when just before i started ninth yeah because yeah i said i'm not going to be able to um focus on this mark carried it on for a few years uh about four years i think it is and then he he closed it yeah yeah things move on right good things come to an end yeah so let's talk about ninth so 2015 yeah you finally decide to open up your own place now my first question is you worked in a lot of places you had the street food thing and that was like what made you go now is the time for me to have my own spot back in 2012 it took me two years to find a site did it yeah i left pearl 2012 yeah and i think it's the last six months i thought i want my own place and where that came from was to be able to create a restaurant that i had complete

1:03:44control over in terms of the vision the decor the style of service the location and to be able to create that vision was really important to me so when by the time i left and i think october 2012 i had an idea of what i wanted right and then it took me a year to write the business plan find the money and then two years to find a

1:04:14Olly Fawcett:site because did you win a is it a tv show you were in in 2013 yeah did you win like 50 grand or something i did yeah yeah was that did that cash go into some development yeah interesting so i mean because even in what's this 13 years ago opening a restaurant was not a cheap expertise yeah and unfortunately it wasn't an area where you could go to the banks and ask for some cash because five years before that we had a financial crisis so that whole process took it did take you longer than you thought much longer right yeah i thought it'd take me i was naive i thought it'd take me two years max and the vision because i yeah i watched a video from many years ago of you speaking around that new york influence yeah in the ninth so what was your original vision for the ninth and is it exactly what you thought it would be the original vision for the ninth was different it was called a mandy a yeah what does that mean means oak right and um well it's a take on oak okay and then um my original concept was a wood burning oven which you see a lot of now right yeah i think i was ahead at the times back then right and in terms of design very similar you know exposed bricks a lot of wall materials and yeah olive leather and sharing dishes that was always the case is that i can't actually remember but in like 2012 was that sharing stuff wasn't really a thing in london was it no not as much no it was a little bit of like tapas-y thing but it was all pretty rubbish yeah yeah okay nice and um from that original concept of the mandy to what the ninth is i think in terms of the space i always wanted something which was like one large ground space which is always difficult to find whereas the ninth is on different levels and then we don't have a word burning oven because our building doesn't allow that right then we have a charcoal oven but in terms of the food it is what i what i wanted and And in terms of the decor, it is pretty close through my vision when back in 2012.

1:06:28Amazing. Yeah.