The Chef Who Left Gordon Ramsay and Built an Empire in Cornwall | Paul Ainsworth

0:00The last sort of 21 years of doing this sets you up for something like this. It sets you up for, you know, having that sort of resilience and endurance.

0:19I started there in 1999 and it was, I don't know, it was like entering special selection. I mean, the podcast is being interrupted by Gordon Ramsay, everyone. If you want to be a great leader, if you want to get on, listen. We were selling sandwiches and scones and tea cakes to put money in the till. My first day there, I got thrown off service by normal. Why are you doing this now at this point in your career? Yeah, I've got to be really honest because I think it's good to be really, really, really honest and stuff. And I don't mind, you know, there's certain things I think, you know, you don't share.

0:52But this is make or break.

0:59Olly Fawcett:paul welcome to the show thank you for having me oh my absolute pleasure you have managed to get us out the studio today which is absolutely glorious i mean we are in one of your amazing restaurants in one of your pubs um but thanks so much for having us on the show how is the start or we're almost halfway through 2026 but how has 2026 been for you 2026 has been a i don't want to say sort of stressful but it has been a very very uh yeah challenging stressful yeah um but also exciting and exhilarating starts of the year you know uh there's been lots going on i've got a huge new project biggest projects of you know of my life today um for me you know for me my wife uh our entire team and and it's a real sort of make or break project so with that comes all of the all of the challenges from financing it to you know the vision for it you know having you know is the idea that we believe in the idea that you know people you know want and all of those things sort of go through your head and you know with that comes lots and lots of lots and lots of challenges but do you know what we're you know we're sort of beginning of may and and i'm feeling good yeah i'm feeling good and um i think the last sort of 21 years of doing this sets you up for something like this it sets you up for you know having that sort of resilience and endurance and you know i'll say to myself you know you've been here before paul you know when we were doing this place this wasn't a walk in the park you know this was an absolute overhaul at the mariners um to get it how we wanted to get it and also not knowing rock and a lot of people sort of saying to us yeah rock's busy in the summer but come winter it's a ghost town uh so yeah that's been you know yeah sort of that history i suppose has got me to this point where i believe in what i do i believe in myself and i know that the team around me and surrounding myself with the best people you know this is going to be you know not gonna be it is it's gonna be it's it's yeah it's it's done it's it's written it's uh it's non-negotiable it's you know the you know the i suppose that you know i don't want to say the cherry on the cake because i feel i've got so much more to give and i feel the amesworth collection feels like a we just feel like it's always beginning it always feels fresh it always feels exciting and what's next and yeah I absolutely love it as well that's that's the key I think I love it it's so important right and we're going to get on to so much about what you're building in the future and also what you've built today because your collection is it's not a small collection you've done a lot in a very short period of time yeah but before all that I mean you basically grew up in the hospitality trade right that was that was your life as a child can you just tell me a little bit more about what that was yeah I was born in Southampton I was born into a um guest house essentially um it was a five bedrooms and then my parents took it to 10 bedrooms the workplace was was home life right uh to me i didn't know any different i you know i loved it i can remember my dad sort of saying you know you know at the school gates you know when you're chatting to parents they would be a bit you know well isn't that you know is that the sort of best environment to bring a child up in and you know because it being a guest house as well it was seven days a week right so so your parents were always working always working and particularly my my dad my dad was a real sort of disciplinarian in it you know he he pushed me right you know he pushed me and i think sometimes my mum thought maybe a bit too far you know and i'm talking like you know like a young age from a very young age i think from the moment i can remember you know it was like jobs you know i never had any sort of thing as like pocket money if i was going to be given a couple of quid i it had to be there was a transaction right so there was a transaction of right well if you want you know money you have to earn it and did that not seem normal to you though like at that point of view that's how you're growing up i suppose to me it did but then when you start to hang out with your mates yeah you realize it's not yeah because you know you've got mates that like they've got a brand new pair of nike air max because mum and dad have bought them yeah you know or they've got whatever you know back then shell suits yeah or kind of stuff like yeah stuff like that i but for me and even my mates my mates was like oh your dad you know your old man you know he's no let up with him you know he's he's kind of he just he just doesn't stop and they'd call for me you know like when your mates call for you you know i'm like in i'm from that sort of 90s era where the boys would call for me and i'll be like lads i can't come out yet and because it was a because the family home was the workplace it wasn't you lived in the building yeah we lived in the building sorry i didn't realize that yeah so so it's really the work so it was really the workplace so it wasn't like they were calling for me you know sort of two up two down and you know so i'm sweeping the car park i'm doing the gardens i'm yeah you know i've got all of these jobs to do and then then i sort of got a bit savvy to it and i'd start to kind of say well listen i can get out quicker if you give me a hand and so then i built this little mini workforce we're like the boys are coming in their shell boys boys are coming in in their shell suits and like you know and i'll be like look you know i can you know and because we had a little bar right so i'd pinch cokes from the bar to give to the lads and stuff and say you know vince yeah i if you help me get this done i can get out quicker there's a coke in it for you and we're sweet yeah exactly so um so yeah like home life and work life for me and then once i was you know allowed out I then you know paper round culture yeah which I loved and and I just I just always wanted to earn I always wanted to sort of you know earn money to kind of buy things and you know I just loved it and yes you know I'm at a paper shop and I've got four rounds you know so I did a morning round an evening round and then I did the Sunday round the Saturday round then the shopkeeper said do you want to come and insert the magazines into the tabloids on the you know on the weekends because the weekend papers they don't turn up to the shop with the magazines in the right so I'd get to the shop at 4am put all the magazines and all the papers then I'd go out and do the rounds and then the guy up the road veg merchant chap called Trevor he said look when the shop closes I've got all the potatoes to bag up for the next day I'll give you a couple of quid if you so I'd sort of finish school do my paper round and then I'll be in this kind of veg shop till you know seven you know 7 30 um at night loading up potatoes and stuff so yeah it was a yeah just

7:56i've got a feeling who that could be

8:01Olly Fawcett:i mean the podcast is being interrupted by gordon ramsay everyone this this this is being interrupted by gordon and tana ranzi you're allowed to interrupt if you want good morning how are you yes yeah yeah very good you okay Hello man. Just for a minute. Yeah, you. I'm sorry if you're up to. Yeah, I'm not mad. It's for me. This guy. Yeah, I've got a small podcast. What network's you running? None. None. No.

8:39Olly Fawcett:What's it called? What it takes. Yeah, exactly. Thanks very much. Thanks for the soil. I just knew that was you and that and that. I just knew that was you and that and that. right i mean as interruptions go i mean no you've got a you have to include that i can't remember what we're talking about i was like i was seeing the corner of my eye i was seeing

9:16Olly Fawcett:anyway let's move on from paper rounds all of that's staying in by the way that's got to yeah but i mean after your paper rounds you you obviously decided pretty early you wanted to stay in the hospitality trade right yeah i mean after working with your parents going through that process you weren't scared by it because you ended up working in a hotel in south hampton right yeah which wasn't as i understand it the highest class the higher class establishment necessarily that you're now working today and you've done but going into a kitchen that wasn't a family surrounding and going to that environment for you was it like i were you full of confidence or were you kind of ready to understand what you needed to do no uh i mean taking it taking it back a step before the hotel yeah i was born into hospitality but i didn't i don't have any of these romantic stories of you know me and my grandma cooking together or you know being in the fields and all of this at this point i i don't know what i want to do and i certainly don't have any sort of aspirations at this point to be a chef and it's school you know you get work experience and the hotel only came about because i chose four of the most random things a hotel random services on the m27 champion sport don't you remember those no and uh and a camping shop like called black so again you know because i'm just i'm at school yeah it's it's not the place for me i'm not you know i'm definitely not part of the school system i just was not good at school yeah in all aspects and i got the position you know oh i got the work experience at the hotel and i remember just saying to my dad you know do you know what dad i'm gonna try and get a job here because you know i sort of had all these other bits i was telling you about the paper rounds the bed shop i was saying better wear catalog stuff you know just you know earning money and i did get a job there and sort of when i did get the job there i was just coming to the end in my exams and i am that kid you know the i i think my highest grade was an f you know it was all coursework based uh gcses uh school just was not the was not the place for me and i remember ollie i was i went to collect my gcse results i knew my gcse results were shocking and they weren't going to be very good and i was that grain chill type kid you know the tie was around my head you know like that you know that you know the joker you know ainsy's ainsy's funny and he's a good laddie oh he makes you laugh he's all good and stuff and everyone's signing your shirt like they do you know you've got your white shirt on ties around your head for some reason i always used to walk to school with my mates and for some reason i had my exam results and i don't know how but you got all of the year 11s leaving and i'm on my own and i'm walking down the street and i can feel it now and I remember this feeling of what now like this because as much as I didn't like school it was a security it was a bit of a purpose and what now you know yeah I'm about to get this job at a hotel but I don't it's still at this point I don't know I want to be a chef and I just remember thinking to myself you know look you knew your exam results were going to be shocking you knew that this isn't what you are you're not an academic like that but the one thing I knew I did have Ollie was I had a work ethic yeah and I knew I was not afraid of hard work and I knew that I might not be able to always outsmart people with you know maths and you know grammar and all the things that you know that sort of you know the school system sort of tries to set you up for and all of that but I knew that I knew I was ahead when it came to work and I knew that I could out work people and i knew that i had a a really strong work ethic yeah and that for me was the thing that i just held on to right that was my sort of well what what am i good at what can i do and i just walked home and i went and did work experience at the hotel they offered me a job yeah six months later um and i was just a general assistant six months later i said to the chef i'd like to come in the kitchen and as you say even though it wasn't a spectacular gourmet michelin star kitchen it was a it was a three-star hotel um in southampton the chef was phenomenal he was disciplined and about three four months later he actually rang my dad without me knowing and said i think your son's got what it takes if you don't mind me kicking his ass i think if a lot of parents got a phone call like that now they'd probably be like what do you mean kick his ass whereas my dad says you can probably now build the picture was very much yeah well he's used to that so yeah crack on go for it and uh and away i went the energy of that kitchen and that environment do you remember it being different to the family one yeah i and i and i loved it and he started me as a kitchen porter right and i wore one of those horrendous shallow paper hats a blue boiler suit were steel toe cap boots and he he had me on the wash up for months and they did like a roaring trade of like breville toasties at lunchtime with a with an iceberg size like side salad nice and it was a bit beneath the chefs that were actually there and they hated it so when the remenco machine was printing all these toasties whereas i was like well i'll do it because i and and again yeah you're right there was this feeling of you know i'd make the toastie and i'd put the side salad and they you know big bag they had a multi catering bags of walker's crisps and you put a side finger walker's crisps on the side ready salted and then i'd follow the waiter or the waitress up to the top of the stairs and i'd look through there was like a kind of like a sort of the there was like a door with like a ship kind of like porthole thing and i'd watch them put it down and sort of you know just see if they were like oh thank you very much and if they smiled and there was that feeling of making something and giving it to somebody that really sort of it resonated with me i liked it i liked the feeling of actually just making something from scratch whether it was a breville toasty or now it's what we do now yeah it's still that you're you know there's something really nice about food and the connection and people and i think that's truly deep down what chefs love chefs love to make people happy through food yeah do you think there's lessons to be learned no matter which kitchen you're in at any level at any level yeah at any because you think there's a conception where like if you're in a let's say a establishment that isn't quite at the level of a michelin level or even a guide level or rosette or whatever it might be do you think often people snub that as i've got nothing to learn there no you if you are starting out now yeah and it's a great it's a great question if you are starting out now go and do a trial shift it's called a stage go and do a trial and this is what i did and i added an amazing piece of advice and this person said to me go there do a trial and can you really imagine yourself there can you visualize yourself there in this kitchen and don't start to you know don't don't try and go in and go straight to kind of you know michelin level or one star two star three star start you know in somewhere where you can kind of get comfortable work hard but the most important thing is put yourself somewhere where it doesn't matter what they're doing whether they're sort of doing you know roaring trade on sandwiches or they're doing you know really really simple fare yeah but as long as there is a standard and as long as you feel that you are valued yeah then start there and when you go to the next position no matter how high you climb in that business you know the great man you know has just walked past i worked i worked for gordon for six years and when i joined raw hospital road in 2000 well uh 1999 i had left gary roads and i'd worked my way through the ranks i was on the sauce section and i kind of left roads in the square as i thought somebody i know like i'm on the sauce i'm working like the sauce that i'm in that kitchen yeah i'm I'm butchering, I'm filleting, I'm making sauces.

17:27And Gary Rhodes' stocks and sauces are like, those recipes are incredible. But, you know, I left Gary Rhodes as a senior chef to party, but I went into his kitchen as a commie. And I, no matter what, because ego tells you, well, no, I want to apply for a chef to party position. I want to apply for a senior chef to party position. No chance. Don't do it to yourself.

17:53Olly Fawcett:It's just different levels, isn't it? Because that's your ego talking. Yeah. Go in there, start at the bottom. And, and I'm so glad I did because when I entered Royal Hospital Road, Restaurant Gordon Ramsey, let me tell you, everything I thought I knew just went out the window. I, I had a great stamina and, you know, going into Restaurant Gordon Ramsey was, I always describe it as if that was, if sort of what, you know, when I was at Rose in the Square and working for Gary, we won a Michelin star and it was, it was brilliant. And when I started at Royal Hospital Road, it was two Michelin stars and I started there in, I started there in 1999 and it was, I don't know, it was like entering special selection.

18:38It was, I had never seen anything, anything like it was breathtaking. And, and he was, he was on a mission and I was, I was, I was a part of that. and then a year later you know one january evening we're in service you can tell something's happening something's kind of going on gordon's just really can see he's kind of on edge and it was a good service it was a real good energy but he there was something happening he was on edge we've all got our heads down and i've been there a year and uh he just came into the kitchen and said uh that table are free tonight you can you know i know you can all sense that you know know we've been a bit on edge but michelin had come to tell him that he'd won his third michelin star and we just all cheered we were all wrapped up in in ultimately his success but it was everyone was just so happy you know for you know for gordon because you just knew that he was he was driving for that but we were we were a team and we were you know we were part of something and you don't actually realize that for me i didn't realize how rare that was because you then sort of look at you know free michelin star restaurants now in the uk and even now they are like they're the holy grail they're an absolute rarity but to be part of seeing a restaurant go from two to three and and being you know be in that environment was was one of the greatest you know was one of the greatest you know moments in my career and and and and it's and it's incredible and uh yeah insane i

20:16Olly Fawcett:want to just ask you about actually working with with um with gary rhodes what so you've been in southampton you'd got the opportunity to go there what did you have to do in order to perform in that kitchen because for you you walked in there with experience and you know it's a completely different game right and you're in london at this point yeah but you know some imagine everyone's going to think right we're going to be fast got to be able to you know act out in a quick way and at pace got to be able to taste and all these are variables that are really important but what really was it in that kitchen which was i need to get to this point in order just to be able to sustain in this role yeah gary gary was phenomenal and still to this day so ahead of his time right an absolute pioneer he for me 100 took me from thinking more is more right and actually showing you that actually less is more but it is it's it's still going to give you so much more like on the you know on the plate and the attention to detail and the precision in what he did was incredible and and he was amazing and like i said to you earlier you know from sauce making to stocks to just actually working somewhere where it was three or four things but they were all there for a reason they were all sort of you know aiming for perfection so you know if that vegetable was there it i suppose when you when you go from what i'd known to then working for for gary rhodes for gordon ramsay you then sort of actually i don't know if it really you call it garnish to me right garnish for me is sometimes well you know you've got this beautiful piece of protein or actually the vegetable could be the hero and then it's like oh garnish it yeah whereas when you were working you know when i was working for gary it wasn't you know we weren't garnishing it we were we were sort of well that's a beautiful piece of beef and the sweetness of that braised carrot just complements that this is what we're gonna this is how we're gonna make the sauce and the acidity we're looking for in the sauce you know coming from the type of red wine we're going to use from the type of vinegar we're going to finish that sauce with to how we make that sauce to how we cut the vegetables so they all caramelize at the same time and there's no mush from the vegetables in the sauce and then when you pass it to chopping the bones all the same size you know you weren't just kind of getting the bones out of a bag from the butcher and ramming them in a tray and putting them in the other we cut the bones all the same size yeah and it's all of those disciplines and then working at that level being really busy you know roads in square we were doing 60 for lunch 80 for dinner every day you know Gary was you know he was the sort of the celebrity celebrity chef of his time and what I also loved about Gary was when he was there and I know we've got a mutual friend Brian Hewson you know you you asked Brian when Gary was there Gary was there first one in and no matter how early you you would want to get there to try and beat him he'd beat you there and he lived in kent and he would drive in he lived in kent and he would drive in and i was i was there for half past six in the morning and gary had been there since half past five and i just got memories you'd walk around the corner and he we used to have this beef dish on with these beautiful like leonais onions a great example of gary's gary's cooking so the onions you'd take them almost bittersweet you'd have this lovely kind of rolled sirloin with the fat cover and then you'd have this beautiful chateau potato that's been turned glazed in all the trimmings from the beef and that was it ollie it was just this onions but if you think about we all love don't we a kind of like a beef potato sort of onion kind of you know pie or whatever but he had sort of taken that refined it but not deconstructed it yeah but so it was about this incredible sauce the way you cook these onions this potato but we would go through these potatoes it was the most popular dish on the menu so you'd have this big kind of white dustbin filled with ice cold water and gary be there turning sacks of potatoes and he's turning why is he doing that why do you think he's doing that for you guys to set the example yeah to set the example that i know that i might not be here for a couple of months at a time i know that i'm filming roads around britain and television series and writing book after book but now i'm here and I'm committed to you did it give you obviously it would be inspiring but it did it also give you the level of a kind of attainability that you could get to his his standard in him being so shut side side to side with you yeah definitely he he was he was inspiring and everyone I've worked for I've not worked for a ton of people but the people I've worked for have just hugely inspired me and I go back to that point of a young chef now starting out pick the place visualize yourself there but don't just pick the place for the food pick the place for everything and watch watch the person in charge and how they behave and how they act and how they treat people and i i would look at i'd look at gary i'd look at gordon i'd look at marcus you know and how they held their spoon how they sort of stood at the past how they just everything i just want i i just was a sponge and i go back to i go back to paul at school now all of a sudden you know i just thought i you know school made me feel like it made me feel it made me feel a thick thick oh it made me feel it just made me feel not very not very good i'll just no you won't get in the world yeah and it's and listen this is no violin you know but i i wanted to be don't get me wrong i wanted to be the team captain i wanted to be good at football i didn't want to be picked last yeah but i was and i was that horrible thing when they picked teams yeah and actually i didn't even get picked i was just like last person then and they'd be like ainsy jump on that team and and that really does kind of like it did to me anyway it really kind of gets you in it gets you inside so when i found cooking and all of a sudden someone started to say to me you're all right at this you're good at this and I could feel like it was good at this and because of that work ethic and when I went to college and when they were all going down the Royal Oak pub in Southampton and you know going out and chilling out on the grass and you know smoking weed and doing whatever I was running back to the to the star hotel with pete the german yeah and and i was doing breakfast so i'll do breakfast so i'd leave my house at like 4 30 in the morning i do breakfast i was late for college every day by about 10 15 minutes by the time i finished breakfast shift i even had a lecturer that absolutely despised me and said you know ainsworth you you know you you do all right if you could get your ass out of bed early and i had to keep quiet because i did not want the college to interfere with my workplace because as much as I wanted to do college, I still wanted to keep earning.

27:18And I did not want to stop earning. And then soon as college was finished, I'd run over to back to the Star Hotel. But I knew because working with Pete and another chap called Fred, I was miles ahead of these students in the kitchen because I was working in a kitchen. And I had no interest in going and dossing and doing all of that. I just wanted to kind of, don't get me wrong, it wasn't all work work work like i love to go out as you probably you know with my mates and have a good time but i i they knew as well they knew that i was focused and at last sort of you know rubbish rubbish poor how i had sort of like you found purpose yeah and i ended up winning like the student chef of the year and like i was on the front page of the daily echo and like you know and all of a sudden my mum and dad were like oh crikey that's our son yeah and then it i don't know it just kept snowballing because i i loved it and i wanted it and i and and and because i just had gone for quite a long time in in my sort of early years of like i say being a bit yeah a bit rubbish now all of a sudden and i'm not gonna say as well that cooking was all i was just like always top with again because trust me i have been delivered by by him by marcus by gary by their head chefs by their sous chefs by some you know incredibly demanding senior chef the parties when i've been in sort of apprentice commie level but they have all been for me character building they have all been i've never ever suffered bullying or things that are related to hospitality every single one of those people have always i felt had my best interests at heart and seen that i was capable of something and was extracting it out of me when you're at rose did a lot of people not survive yeah why do you think they didn't survive hours right strict strict environment because this is

29:19Olly Fawcett:the 90s noughties period right so it's a slightly different environment to what it is kind of now anyway and like i've just said gary's not running it gary's not there all the time so you've got You know You've got chefs You know Like An amazing You know Chef Stephen Smith Brian will know Stephen Relentless Really Absolute Machine What do you mean by relentless In that context? Just Just on it Right And I And you can probably see it on the smile on my face I loved it And when he was going And when he was on it I wanted Like I wanted more Same as Same as Same as him when he when when when gordon was on it and fired and and stuff secretly inside it is it is it is kind of your adrenaline is going and you are in fight or flight mode and you're ready for it but oh it's it's it's addictive it's it's it's kind of rock and you know it is it's a it's a type of rock and roll it's it's amazing and it's not for everyone and you know what that's okay that doesn't make you a failure that doesn't make you weak you know some are some chefs i know now that have got unbelievable careers and have are fantastic in their own right of you know i've seen them they've stepped into when i was sort of say at royal hospital road and when i was at roads and they they walked they did they didn't like it but they've still gone on to have you know amazing you know amazing careers it's you know i just it just suited me yeah it suited it it suited me because i loved the purpose of it all i loved the discipline of it all i i remember when i moved to cornwall and someone was asking me about working at you know raw hospital road and i suppose that's what makes the world go around people are different and they were oh you know well what was it like then that's well yeah it's just incredible and you're talking about it and you're like i just gave an example of you know you know when you're filleting fish you you you had to keep the two fillets from that fish together if you didn't you were you know you were banging trouble because you weren't going to serve those two fillets because say you were serving you know beautiful red mullet dish and you were giving two fillets you'd give two fillets from say the right hand side of the vertebrae but it's i've read a lot of sort of like military books you know i know you know people that are you know you know in marines i've had conversations with people that you know that are you know being in that kind of sas world and there are lots of things in that world that don't necessarily actually you look at and think well what's the point okay what's the point yeah yeah but you're missing the point if you look at it like that the point is discipline structure yeah just you know disciplining these like you know as a chef that you are that just everything has a procedure you know you're not just taking a load of fillets off off of a fish or you know and stacking them all on a white tray and and it was how we had to stack fish how we had to kind of you know look after fish everything all little things now does the customer eat that and go yeah i can tell that they've um you know that they've kept the you know the fillets uniformed and then they've stacked them like probably not no but it's i think it's like if you look at you know an f1 team yeah actually from the front car to the back car isn't always huge it's not a minute's difference it's seconds sometimes less but it's one thousand Yeah, but it's all the little incremental differences, all the fine margins, they do add up.

33:05And that's what I 100 % felt and learned when I was, certainly when I went from, you know, Gary's was a lot like that. But sort of like then Royal Hospital Road was, you know, was just another level.

33:20Olly Fawcett:It's almost like, I guess what you're saying is a lot of chefs didn't understand the reason why in the early days. and i think that i've experienced that in my work in terms of just understanding why we do things a certain way because there isn't always a very defined answer as to say this is the outcome yeah it's almost saying we do it because we do it that way and it teaches those other factors yeah why did you leave gary's place to go to royal hospital road because you were in there for two years yeah which is in in for those that don't know in the grand scheme of things is a long time a short time what would you say that is yeah uh it back then it felt like a good stint felt like a felt like a really really good stint and i think i would have done longer but there was this you know you gotta gotta remember gordon's not on tv yet or anything and there's this show kind of forming called boiling point yeah and he's if you're a chef you know who he is and you know that it's exciting and this and bearing in mind there was i had friends working for marco pierre white it's um at the oak room yeah i had friends working at nicole dennis free stars pierre kaufman um free stars yeah and i had lots of mates that would sort of that had gone from gary's and then gone straight to sort of that freestyle level but i don't know there was just something about gordon that i just wanted to go and be a part of and now and again when i would go home i'd get the coach the national express from victoria and it would go down raw hospital road really and i would i would literally always get a seat on the left hand side and the coach or just i don't know whether it was you know by luck or by chance but it would always seem to sort of like stop in a bit of traffic yeah yeah yeah and you just look in there and now you know these people australian darren rusty and they're like opening scallops they're passing you know stocks and sources you know through muslin cloth and I'd want the coach to hold their hold and I'd look at it and I'd look at it and one day our mutual friend brothers me Brian James Arnie we're we used to get Sundays off at Gary's and we are in the um gallery pub outside Pimlico station and one of the lads just said there's gordon ramsay and he he pulled up in a like a golf gti and he was making a phone call in a telephone box and i just shot out the pub waited outside the telephone box for what felt like an age you know massively because he's he's a unit yeah like i mean a unit and he comes out and he's like hello and i'm like you know can't even yeah say my own name and i just said look i'll I'd love to come work for you.

36:06I really, really would love to come work for you. Uh, he said, okay, um, here's a phone number for the kitchen. Uh, Mark Askew is the head chef. And, um, yeah, if you want to come work for us, then arrange an interview. So I rang Mark Askew, uh, he said, yep, come on down. And that was quite common for people to do that at that point. Yeah. That would be how you would probably, I don't know if it was common to kind of go about it like that. And that, like, I suppose that was a bit of a sliding doors kind of moment. and I went there and the reason I knew I had to go there was because it was like nothing I'd seen it was electric it was it was a different it was it was intense it was everything and it was it was it was scary and like my mum my mum didn't understand it because she didn't know who she didn't know who Gordon was Gordon wasn't you know like how Gordon is now and known like he is now and but my dad was like look he knows what he's doing if he thinks that he wants to go work for this guy because i had to be really honest with my mum and dad and say to them there's a good chance i could get sacked here and not make it this kitchen is relentless just because the the reputation on the circuit was you know raw hospital road is not for the faint-hearted and if you want to work there you've got to really want to work there and you've got to you've got to have what it takes and it's going to be um and it's going to be full on just like just like i suppose you know when a you know when a soldier thinks right well you know i want to i want to be a raw marine or i want to go i want to go to the next level and i want to go to it's always a risk yeah i want to go to sort of special selection or whatever you know that we come with that it is going to be it's going to be incredibly difficult and i think sometimes people think you know but why our chefs you know they're all this they're egotistical they're that and my first day there i this is so i've got the job right so you're not staging at this point you're actually full time i've got the job i've been offered the job my first day there i got thrown off service by gordon and and i was like holy this has never happened to be before in my life and i'm you know you're talking you know you're you're talking like thrown off service go down clean the fridge service finishes and he and i can hear these footsteps coming down the stairs and i'm like i'm thinking i'm gonna now get an absolute like i'm just gonna get turned over now like absolute bollocking and he just said come here and he sat down and he said um do you know why i'm free off the service and i said yeah yeah i said i know i did wrong and uh he said paul he He said, when you're doing what we're doing and when you've, you know, and he told me about the risk and everything, all the money he's borrowed to finance Raw Housewell Road and it's called Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

38:56And with the greatest respect, that mistake I've made, the expectation that's in the dining room, the diner is at this table for around two hours, two and a half hours. And the clock is ticking. The expectation is through the roof. who this Gordon Ramsay, you know, he thinks he's the, you know, he thinks he's the, you know, the, you know, you know, the next best thing. You know, he's chasing the third star. All of that comes in intensity, comes a pressure. And there's never anything other than like, right, right now we haven't, it's not like the corporate environment where we can just disappear to the, you know, the photocopying room.

39:36And like, let's talk about it. Hang on, let's go to the boardroom. Let's have a sit down and let's work out. let's work out what went wrong yeah you haven't got it diners out there expectation is through the roof and it's only now ollie you know when i opened number six i then was that person and i then knew what that pressure felt like when i called the restaurant paul ainsworth at number six and know that like when people make those mistakes that it's actually the people leave and they go yeah went to that paul ainsworth's place pretty shit you know it's pretty average to be honest yeah didn't didn't didn't you know didn't enjoy it so that pressure is is is really really real and and then he and then he then went right back to when he was playing for rangers and the devastating you know injury this is all in the conversation this is all in the conversation this is my first day and it had you really spoken at all with him to this point not at all and he's a pretty deep meaningful conversation so do you know what else i took from that so not only did i take from that but yeah i get it it's your name above the door you know but i also took that it's not all people think oh it's all screaming and shouting and that this is a guy that i am absorbing because he's now taking time to sit me down tell me why i made the mistake yeah understand why he had to kind of take me off of the service but then spend time with me and talk to me and nurture me and guide me yeah and that's he still you know he still does that now you know we still we still you know meet for a coffee now and i'll say what do you think about this and and i think you know something that's really really important that i always say to people is it's great to have a mentor and i've got incredible mentors in my life you know i have another mentor in my life that you know i've been with now for 20 you know 20 over 20 years you know a chap called derrick who's more of the business side of things but you know quite often now ollie we we aren't great at listening and that's something that I've always fortunately I've had I've had a skill that I've always been a good listener and if people just realize if they stopped sort of listening just to reply yeah and actually listen to grow and you don't always have to be the person in charge of the conversation you don't always have to be because I've I can meet up for coffee with someone like you know gordon or you know like ross braun is a a big regular of our restaurants and become like a really really you know great guy and friend and and you know i took him tost anadoc recently and you're like with one of the most greatest minds has ever ever been like you you just you can just see he's just this mind yeah business technical mind like the whole lot everything yeah But when I'm with him, all he's interested in is what I'm up to.

42:28And he just sort of listens. But then when I've sort of, we'll talk to him about business or this, or it'll give me a comparison to an F1 garage or aero, you know, aerodynamics. But that doesn't have any, I don't know anything about aerodynamics, but it'll give me examples I can relate to. Yeah. And then I listen to him. But the fact that I'm sat with someone, you know, me, did I ever think that I'd be sat with people you know like that but they're great listeners and the people I absolutely admire in this world the greatest leaders are quite often the ones that sit there and listen not the loud shouty I want to be in charge it's you know it's you know it's about me and that for me is something that is you know if you want to be a great leader if you want to get on listen and you can see in people you can sometimes see in people that they're they're listening to what you're saying but they're not and they're almost like either lifting out their seat or there's this bundle of energy that's in their core and they're coming out and they're just like okay yeah i'm i can hear words stop talking stop talking and then they blah they then they and you just i look at people like that and i just think do you know what you would be you would be so much better and I feel you'd probably you know have so much more to give and be better if you just listen and that's been you know that's been a big thing for me and and the mentors I have in my life the the people I've worked for you know the ones I truly have taken value from are yeah Gary was the same he would spend time with people and people can look at Gordon and you know and they they'll have an opinion and they'll say oh yeah you know the shouty sweary angry chef and i'm telling you now when you know people you know like you know the real gordon or you get to know like the real kind of gary rhodes and people like that they are they are incredible supportive nurturing you know they guide people and that my first shift i mean it was with me for 45 minutes you know it's a conversation and we're sat raw hospital road downstairs used to have a big long soil pipe and you just sit on that and run this soil pipe and we're under the road we're under raw hospital road sat on the soil pipe and he's like explaining to me and he's talking to me about you know and and and and and that is who i wanted to be that's who i want to emulate that's who i and and all the mentors in my life in you know and when i sort of started number six and and i was very sort of angry and you know like the only way you know the way forward was through kind of, you know, just being like screaming and shouting and it was, and, you know, like I say, you know, meeting people like, you know, meeting people like Derek and realizing that actually, you know, if you want to be truly successful in this life, and there are certain ways of being successful in this life, I suppose, you know, maybe if you're a trader on a, on a trading floor and there are certain people that, you know, that will have success through being solo and being very cutthroat my business is about people and I quickly learned when I was on my own and actually if I look back at sort of the great people I've worked for to surround yourself with incredibly brilliant people because if there's one thing I've learned I don't always have the best idea if it is my idea I'm not always the best person to implement it now quite often I'll be the fire starter I'll you know you know you create the vision but I know 10 isn't it absolutely but I know that there's you know there's things that I'm you know not the best and I know that there's people in my business that are absolutely much better at me you know than me in delivering what we want to do but that again for me is what leadership is about yeah actually the greatest thing about it is seeing the individuals that are in our business you know like chelsea roper our coo john walton our group calling director paul dodd our director of operations all of our head chefs our sous chefs you know nicola dodd who we who is called our chief people officer you know because we have built this over 21 years through great people and and there's you know great people from the past you know the present and great people that will join this business in the future um and that for me is that for me is the is our greatest strength is our people and you know last year i did a you know again another pinch me moment i was asked to do a talk at mclaren you know with deloitte and google and it was in front of 150 ceos had all flown in from around the world and they wanted me to talk about sort of you know will ai have an effect on on sort of my business but also like this now you know what did it take what does it take and there was quite a lot of talk about sustainability and of course green sustainability is super super important but the one thing i think that i really sort of you know shocked them with was you know there's so much talk about green sustainability but i don't ever hear many people talking about people sustainability and that's the thing that we now have a board and we have a chairman and we drive you know yeah we've built this on food and drink but now can you know we aim for perfection with food and drink you know so we want to be the same with people and we make mistakes and we're not perfect and we'll you know we'll get it wrong but the greatest thing for me is seeing somebody join what we do yeah and then become a version of themselves they didn't know existed and once upon a time I was that you know and I and it will it you know it can make me emotional when I think back to like you know young sort of teenage Paul who didn't realize there was a version of himself in there but through meeting great people you know not just the people I know now Pete the German you know Graham and Kevin at Carey's Manor you know the people that i then met in london the people that have had such a early influence on my career they helped me realize that like i had something and that's what my aim is to do for people within what we do is to is to sort of you know say look you've got something in now sometimes we call it the crossroads people will get to the crossroads and they will say it's not for me what is that

49:09Olly Fawcett:crossroads they're kind of like what they need to do in order to get to where they're going to be and also who they are now generally they generally they it's at a breaking point right they are for where they are yeah i i don't want to do this it's the hours are a bit unsociable the and and and again hospitality has moved on so much in the people aren't doing ridiculous hours you know in in their working week but you are also gonna you're also never gonna be able to remove the element which my you know when i told my dad i was going to be a chef in the people eat out people want to eat out in the evening and somebody has to somebody we have to be there to cater for that so you are going to always have the unsociable element to it but you don't have to have the 90 plus hour yeah kind of element to it and that's where hospitality now i feel is in such a brilliant place in that you know everyone is worked so hard to kind of actually sort of yeah you can have a brilliant career and you don't have to work you know the the hours that we all once worked do you think that's because of what was going on in the 90s and noughties in terms of the crazy hours because you must have done some crazy hours and probably got close to the crossroads yeah or hospital road or wherever you are maybe that kind of came across do you think the industry has changed because it was almost broken yeah it was almost broken and i think the the new the new generations coming through just questioned more but and this is now you know this is i am talking about me okay nobody else i am talking about me yes i didn't question it but i loved it and so you never got close to the crossroads yeah you did absolutely but i never got close to the crossroads because i felt it was the hours it was always me is it not being good enough yeah I got sacked at Gary Rhodes, told to leave, packed my shit and go.

51:05For what? I'd started service and we were in service. I was by now and by now as well, I've reached quite a decent level. I'm the senior chef to party.

51:15Olly Fawcett:Oh, wow. After two years? Yeah. Wow. And we were flat out. We were short teamed. and anyone that worked it worked for gary in those years knows it is the stocks that you made were immaculate and the method was immaculate right and i won't go into it a few but that one of the secrets was you would have the big stock pots you would put them on a low gas and you would bring them to a haze with steam right and then you would turn them down even more you wouldn't even get close to a boil maybe like a like a simmer and the way that you did the veg and the pig's feet and all the bones instantly you you add what looked like gravy instantly and again i i i'm not going to go into because it's it's too long in in the method but then once it come up you'd get these racks and you push them down and you would then be able to skim them and then you skim and skim skim these were on for three days three days one stop three days as soon as they came off then the chicken would go on so now i'm talking about you're making your beef stock you're dealing your beef stock so i've gone up for service we're short teamed i'm late setting up service kicks off we are in for a monster dinner service and i've not set my timer i've not gone back downstairs i've got the gas on kind of full till they've come up and they are boiling i mean boiling boiling boiling i've run downstairs three massive um stock pots three days that these things are going to be on is this the third day or is this at the start no this is at the start of the process and it is like like your latte there basically it looks like mud like they're all like mud and chap i'm telling you about steve smith uh i can't get away with i'm doing everything i I'm literally like, I'm shaking.

53:07I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm like, I've got to get back up on service. Anyway, he comes down and he sees it and he goes absolutely crazy. Crazy.

53:18Olly Fawcett:Because it's a genuine mistake you've made. Genuine mistake. Like it was just, you just slipped the mind. And he threw me off the service. He basically grabbed my knife box, like gave it to me like that. And was like, yeah, I'm not going to. like a lot of a lot of uh i went home ollie i didn't sleep i cried i cried all night how did you actually feel did you feel like your career was over everything was over it was over it was done i was i was i was yeah i was done was there no part of you at such an age being at all rational was it completely irrational thinking rational thinking rational thinking i'm done uh but what's funny is it knows it what and still is apparent now is is that they then come in the next morning and gone fucking oh we're in the shit today so i get this phone call from mike who was another he was a sous chef he was awesome as well um yeah mike like you're right i'm like yeah and he's like um steve wants a chat so i come in and like i'm like and he's like steve's like uh yeah you know look it was a bit out of hand last night and you know i think you know what you did wrong and i'm like yes yes steve anyway all right well right all right we'll stop fucking about get upstairs and let's go like this he was like so you know he was never gonna go i'm sorry i went too far uh it was very much like um listen let's just get on with it and we did and and again it was and i've had kind of a carver many a moments like that you know in in my career where you reach breaking point you reach the crossroads and sometimes people get to the crossroads and they will take a path that is they're not going to continue they're not going to continue on do you think people cook too early definitely definitely and what's your advice for someone maybe in your industry in terms of being on that crossroads because i think it's happening more and more frequently now yeah just in terms of the way that people are working and industries and and toughness and what people really want out of work has changed so much from from your time but even from my time, the last 10 years of being, 10, 15 years of being in work, like it's changed a lot.

55:26Yeah.

55:27Olly Fawcett:What's your advice to someone who's at a crossroads right now? They... They need to understand that we are living in a world where people are going to watch this, Olly, you know, what we're talking about now. And we live in a world of self-help and we live in a world of Bruce Lee quotes and everyone saying, you know, what to do and how to live. And there's some really great advice out there. There really, really is. And I hope that people have found this really, really helpful when they watch it or inspiring. Yeah. but the one bit that it all boils down to you can read every quote you can read every book you can watch every podcast but the thing that you I have had that I feel has been my strength that I've always like leaned into is I'm telling you now I'm not the most talented chef I'm not the most talented person in the room I'm not the most successful person but what I've always had is a belief i've never stopped showing up i've never once given up or said i'm going to take a different path i'm going to now i maybe have pivoted i maybe have adapted i maybe have gone right i need to change it that's those actual decisions have mainly come more in business it's self-awareness as well as yeah self-awareness but so many people don't realize that they are on the they are on the edge of getting their greatness making it but they then just they then just quit and they justify it in their mind and if you're telling yourself that i'm gonna go here because yeah it's easier but this and that and and you're telling yourself these things and you're building all these things in up in your mind then i'm telling you it is your thoughts and those falls are it's just a voice it's a voice that you either choose to listen to or you actually look at your voice is a bit like a member of the board yeah okay look at your voice as a member of the board okay yeah you've you've had your say you've got something to say but i'm the ceo i'm in charge you're not in charge you're just a voice and you have got the opportunity you're the one that has got the the same what you want to do and i i think if anyone do you know what there there's a really refreshing thing i you know i saw recently it was a great thing you know like when michael jordan sort of saying well maybe i made it look too easy yeah and and i think that when don't get me wrong it's brilliant to see all of this stuff it's brilliant to watch all of this stuff on youtube and online and all of that but don't kid yourself that once cameras have stopped rolling once microphones are turned off it's just the relentless day to day and that is where the success takes place that is where the growth takes place and and i'm not going to bullshit quite often it can be miserable yeah if i look back to like number six and still now there's a it's a different kind of misery that like you know people look now and they see this and they see the collection and they they see all of the things that you that you have in that but it is hard and and quite often it is really really dark and it can be miserable and stuff but also as well I know it can be beautiful and I know it can be amazing and I and I love it and I enjoy it and I want to be and inspirate the the the there's three people in my life that I want to absolutely you know like inspire and that's my wife Emma and my daughter Cece and my youngest daughter Audrey and then after them I want to be the biggest inspiration to my team yeah I want to be the biggest inspiration I can to them and do you know what that doesn't just come through cooking or running businesses that comes through being a healthy version of Paul because that's also a demon and a place that I've fought all my life from school from being you know the overweight kids the you know the the sort of you know like I say I wanted to be good at football I wanted to kind of be good at basketball and all the school sports but the reality was I was kind of I wasn't you know I was always you know way overweight and you know a big lad and then sort of that went into my teenage years and stuff and you know in the last few years I've found fitness and I look at people like Gordon who have you know taken being a chef to a different level it doesn't have to be about sort of you know alcoholism and drug taking and just not looking after yourself and not in you can be a fantastic chef and there are other great examples out there i adam buyer yeah you know phil howard tom carriage you know tom carriage is you know one of my closest friends i've been with 30 stone tom carriage drinking you know seven pints in seven minutes to then seeing him swim a mile a day every day and just seeing him like literally lose the the equivalent of two people in weight sat baines again someone that i've known a long time that's always been conditioned and strong and these guys have inspired me to sort of be yeah i don't want to you know you don't have to be sort of you know like unhealthy to kind of do or be you know in hospitality and then it was quite accepted in your industry in a weird way not accept is maybe the wrong word but it was just very common yeah for a long period of time right like chefs working so hard and running yeah like a like a ferrari with a terrible engine inside yeah you know and not looking after it at all absolutely and and that's something that i'm telling you the byproduct of being fit that what that has on my family and the effect that that's had ollie you know on my you know on my team where I'm one of you know like you know John will say to me I'm gonna enter the London Marathon and you know or like I want to do a half Ironman or Chelsea our COO who you know goes swimming two or three nights a week or Paul Dodd who you know goes into open water swimming and you can tell you know because you could you know you're inspiring them you're sort of saying that you know yeah you know it's you've got to look after yourself you know nutritionally you know hydration everything and that that is being that's probably up there with the most important as as important as sort of the cooking and the front of house and this and and everything I want our our establishments to be known for you know that to me it's made me a better it's made me a better leader a better husband a better dad and then when you're sort of you know the last iron man i was at was in greece and my oldest daughter cc and she's on the she's you know that would that was her fourth finish line she'd been on with me and she puts her arms around me and she puts the medal the medal like around my neck and she's like pointing up at the gantry so it was my fastest ever time as well you know i got a five five thirty five twenty nine well but she's she no she was nine and she's like daddy daddy look at the time look at the time and and then we'd finished and the atmosphere is incredible and the finish lines on the beach and she just looked at me and she was like daddy i just find this so inspiring and she's just looking at she's not just looking at me she's looking at everyone there's got their reason their why their their sort of what they've done to get here and the the emotion and the yeah what it takes to get across you know to get to the finish line or to get to the start line i was gonna say that yeah that's the thing to get to the start you went on quite a long journey just to get to the first start line right yeah and and people say to me what inspired you to do those i'll say you know gordon ramsay you know again you know he's he was a massive inspiration still is as a as a chef and as a businessman and and you know and all and all of those and and you know what as well you know my you know my my mentor you know the you know one of the you know the greatest yeah people in my life you know Derek you know he's 74 years old his wife is 76 78 and they are in the gym every morning you know doing you know doing like you know 10 ,000 steps or you know like band work and stuff like that and I look at you know Derek he's 74 and he's as sharp as a razor and and I and I'm 46 and and and I'm just so aware that I want to be that person now so that I can you know I say to emma you know i want to you know look at emma in the eye when me when we're 80 years old and say we're here we made it yeah that that to me and that and i've got to put that work in now i don't just want to be a busy fool pulling my hair out running from kitchen to kitchen running you know and being oh yeah yeah you know he was a great businessman because no one no one thanks you for that no customers don't thank you don't thank you for that long term they they enjoy and they they love they they love the businesses and stuff but i want to be i want to do this but i want to do it in a healthy sustainable way i don't want to i don't want to burn myself into the ground and and i enjoy and then and the other thing i love about it and that's what inspired me when i when i heard gordon talking about why he did ironmans and stuff and it was to sort of not just the weight loss and all of those things it was to sort of have something to take him away from the chaos and the madness because it is it's chaos and madness but it's almost another goal right like a fitness element and you're kind of growing towards that goal yeah and that's kind of your personalities massively is always focused on that one quick question i do have is when you're in royal hospital road did you in that actual couple of years that you were there did you realize that you were growing when you were there or did you only realize after you left after i left.

1:05:24Olly Fawcett:Because coming back to the crossroads piece we were speaking about, I think a lot of people get to that point where they don't realize how far they've come. Yeah. And they also don't realize that you join a restaurant, you join a kitchen, you join a business and you're like, I want to grow. I want to be the best. Yeah. I employ people. I get that a lot. That's always something in interview. I'm sure you've had it many times. Yeah. And I think people don't really know what growth looks like when they're in it. Yeah. Would you agree? I totally agree with you. And you know what there's nothing wrong with that because I think that that in its way or in itself is a superpower Because and i'll tell you why We live in a world now where we can see everything we have access to everything and we are all guilty of comparison And when you don't When you remove that and just because we live in a world of social media, you can still remove comparison you know because no matter what comparison steals joy yeah and when you don't have comparison when you are just doing you and when you are putting one foot in front of the other turning up don't stop turning up don't i never ever thought about well one day i want to have this many businesses i want to have this many you know sort of interests and assets and all of those things not once all i ever thought about was being in the moment and where i was now that is a lot harder to do now for for myself right for for you know like generations coming through now because this is here to stay we live in a in an you know in a in a information digital yeah you know led world but that doesn't mean to say that you're just going to live your life you know miserable compare on well i want to be where they are and i want to have what they have because if you live your life like that then you know i try not to swear but you really are fucked if you live your life like that social is actually the problem it's how we consume it yeah like that's the problem you know it's not you can't just we always want to find the blame and an excuse social media is a great thing yeah social media can be brilliant you know i've learned so much from social i've been inspired by social media change your business social media has changed our businesses you know when we're when we're getting out there and like you know again you know all this you know oh influencers all of that they are they they have an effect we see it we did it last year we we we last year we said right we want to have we want to have a nice amount of influencers with crab communications our rpr company you know and come down to cornwall and show cornwall and saw that and see what what what our businesses are doing in cornwall and it had a huge effect on you know what is quite a tough time you know right now in hospitality but yeah going back to what you're saying for me i just wanted to always be working somewhere good and as long as i was always learning and driving and had purpose and then once you have your craft yeah once you have your repertoire okay that doesn't just have to be as a chef you've got a repertoire you've got your craft and you know what you're doing yeah then it then becomes about like right what's the next opportunity and again making decisions maybe pivoting maybe doing something different adapting and again I didn't get that right you know at first I left you know I left the Gordon Ramsay stable and went to sort of open a restaurant for a family it didn't work out and I thought oh crikey what have I done what do I do now when you were going to leave Gordon what was the conversation like yeah I mean back then it was a very very different time so it was I think you know you worked your way up and then there was so many opportunities within you know the Gordon Ramsay group as you can imagine you know um there was Gordon always had you know like the next opening and and I don't know what it was if I'm honest Ollie I don't know why I just wanted to go and do something for myself just away from it and I opened a restaurant for a family in Kent um you know for a few months it wasn't for me um and at that point I just did not know what I wanted to do you feel a bit lost at that point yeah I did it was the first time I think in my sort of chef career where it almost felt a little bit like that leaving school moment I told you about um I'm like what what do I do now and I toyed with going abroad and and then but what had happened this restaurant I'd opened in Kent for this family one of the chefs that I was with um said look before we all part ways uh you know my dad's um was thinking of buying a restaurant in Cornwall so you're like okay so we all had a conversation and I said okay it could be you know an opportunity He had never sort of really seen my life, you know, in, in Cornwall.

1:10:17So I met with, um, his dad and, um, we had a conversation and he said, look, you know, I was going to buy this restaurant for my son. Um, but you know, he's really enjoyed working with you. And I had no idea that, you know, his, you know, Chris, um, you know, about his family or anything. Oh, right. It was a completely random surprise. Yeah, random. And he said, you know, he's really enjoyed working with you and, um, you know, we'd like you to be the head chef and, um, we'll just go from there. so have you been a head chef before at this point no no no never never been a head chef but you know before at this point little stint at this restaurant again so i'm like right okay so this is so again spoke to my spoke to my mom and dad as i always did my mom wasn't sure my dad was like well you know if you think you know you can you know you can trust this person so we had a meeting drove down here and what's remarkable is the year before that happened whilst i was still working um for for gordon and marcus wearing i had come down here with a girlfriend on a motorbike for a weekend i just bought this yamaha r6 yeah rode all the way from london to um to cornwall and stayed in padstow in customs house and uh next day walking around padstow town like a tourist and it was all because uh it's crazy life and this story all because one of the chefs at um patrice yeah was um an ex rick stein chef and i said oh i've always wanted to eat the seafood be a great ride for the you know for the motorbike and stuff like that he said yeah i'll get you a table so wanted to eat at rick stein's on the saturday the night before we ate at rick stein's i'm walking around the town and i actually stood outside what's now jewels yeah it's called pro surf looking at number six just like that well basically my girlfriend at the time had walked into a spa shop to get some bits yeah so at that point if somebody had tapped me on the shoulder and said paul this time next year you're going to be not only working there but you're going to be living here you're going to be living in cornwall that's mental and then you know the guy that got me the table at rick steins yeah john walton i've now group culinary director no way yeah that is so mad what a full circle moment because john is padstow john is a padstow born and bred um lad so i think you know when i say to people about or like you've asked me ollie you know you know work hard continually put those hard yards in when no one's looking when you know you're just doing it and it doesn't feel like it is going anywhere but you you know you're working somewhere good and you're being valued just keep going keep showing up because you just never know where the next the next kind of opportunity the next sliding door moment happens and so many of those things of you know like have happened and you know we've just had quite a moment haven't we where you know we've got sort of Gordon Ramsay interrupting you know our podcast that we're doing together but you know I joined Gordon when I was 21 years old as an apprentice commie chef and you know never in the million years did I ever think that you know one I'd have my own places but you know I'd have a pub in you know and he has a house in rock and he comes down here and and i think to answer your question probably best you know fast forward in you know now is i know i just know that he's you know incredibly proud is he proud that sort of i left and i got on and i did something for myself and and by myself with the help of lots of people you have to you know lots of people but i did something without the help of gordon And, but now I have my places that he enjoys coming to and, but I also still talk to him for lots of things and, and I'll, and I'll ask his opinion on lots of things and, you know, what do you think about this?

1:14:25And, you know, what, what, what about this? And, you know, and, and, and he's amazing. He's, he's amazing. So he's, he's still a, he's still a mentor. And I think it's amazing to have mentors in your life. They are so important because you can, there's no better learning. you can learn from books you can learn from podcasts you can learn from self-help you know platforms but actually speaking to people that you trust that have been there and done it yeah there's nothing better you can't beat that you can't beat it the the obviously you made the move

1:15:00Olly Fawcett:down here leaving london as a chef at the level you were at at that point because you know you obviously had the thing in kent that didn't quite work out which is a little bit closer to london but leaving the London let's call it the London food scene were you worried about that yeah yeah I was hugely and and people thought I was bananas opening something or going to just do something in you know what is you know Rick Stein um territory town land and stuff and but I was it never scared me i i always try to look at everything with that you know just great optimism positivity you know always just bring energy and and i i definitely i definitely get got that from from my dad my dad was always you know he just was he was just always glass half full always yeah and that definitely is in me and what i find is one of you know my strengths that's got me got me on in you know in gets me through in life is is just always looking at everything with well what if you know you know what what what if but what if in a good way what what could it work and well why is that a negative because like Derek said to me when you know he got the restaurant you know in Padstow which back then was number six before before me and emma um took it over he was like look rick's done you know wonders you know turned padstow and you know made it you know made it into this kind of gastronomic you know place but they won't want to eat with rick every night of their holiday be the second night be the third night restaurant don't compete compliment him yeah and was the competition between the two of you not really not that i've ever not that i've ever felt um we i made sure that i was totally respectful and still am i moved here be i moved to cornwall because of what rick had done yeah um to to padstow and i just made sure that i took that advice from derek and don't you know don't compete compliment and we found that we found our own groove and then great british menu came knocking in 2011 and that i think was the changing point before then because i think i found a video from about 14 years ago of you in number six talking about when you first got there and taking over it was slow yeah and i think there's a story you told about going to the cinema because it was so so slow and so dead was that was it really that about it were you worried at that point yeah because you gotta remember the environments i've come from yeah and the dining rooms and the kitchens and the people i've come from and and i'm like yeah is this have i made the right decision because ollie we we were we were selling sandwiches and scones and tea cakes to put money in the till at number six at number six to and And when I say sandwiches, I'm not talking about the sandwiches you see, you know, online now, gastronomic sandwiches.

1:18:16I'm talking, you know, I'm talking, you know, cheese and pickle, cheese and ham, you know, and.

1:18:25Olly Fawcett:How do you deal with that mentally for you? Like, I would feel like it must be really painful for you to know, like, you've taken this risk. You've got the self-doubt. Is this working? Like, where am I going to go? How do you stay stable there? by clutching onto the people that i know that were looking right that didn't necessarily want me to fail but were questioning my decisions and questioning my choices that was a motivation they were my fuel and those there's a lot more people like that in my life now like ollie and trust me I think, you know, sometimes people, you know, think, you know, oh, you know, smiley, you know, smiley Paul and all of those kind of things, you know, you don't get to or haven't got to where I've got to in this life by, you know, being a mug or, you know, and I say to people, never, never mistake kindness for weakness.

1:19:25and there are you know there are people i know that you know they they don't they're not happy for you they don't want to sort of celebrate yeah my success our success and that's okay and there's people that have really shit on me and let me down and who i've really really helped and i've really really you know just done everything i can for but that's okay yeah that's not going to make that's not going to change me that's not going to make me sort of become oh you know what don't trust anyone or you know don't have anyone you know close to you and stuff not

1:20:02Olly Fawcett:at all is it the feeling of being taken advantage of off yeah work i think that's what the one of the things i struggle with the most personally is that feeling where you're trying to be a good employer you're trying to be good to the customer whatever that is right good to your suppliers etc it's that feeling of like you say kindness for weakness it's the advantage of like i was trying to do a good thing just trying to do it the right way yeah it's it's hard to manage the anger that can come out the back of that sometimes though right because you're kind of like so frustrated that why can't they be on your level ollie every ceo every entrepreneur every leader every owner has had their fair share of people take advantage of them shit on them take the piss out of them and people secretly behind closed doors who are watching your every move wanting you to fail they from the moment i moved here to now and there's people now they are a big part of the fuel and i don't say that in a and i don't say that in a bitter way it's not bitterness because my philosophy is you can you can achieve absolute greatness in this life you don't have to be a prick to people but don't be a pushover and that's where it's a hard balance and that's where i always say and it's something my dad always taught me never mistake kindness for weakness paul and it's a really simple saying but actually it's a really good one because because it's just because you're kind doesn't mean you're weak just because you know he seems a nice guy he's always smiling well yeah of course i am because i'm not gonna like life's exhausting to be a twat yeah you know it's exhausting why why it's just not in my dna like i i i love helping people i like to i like to sort of if i can offer somebody something i like being generous i like to if somebody misconstrues that takes the piss out of that wants to wants to sort of you know do wrong by you then that okay more for them but one thing i am good at is i'm good at cutting people out like that because as i've got older i realized those people are energy thieves and they yeah they they steal energy from you in in all kinds of guises and they're i'm i've got no problem in sort of cutting those type of people out in my life and and also as well i've never ever once ever been you know um uncomfortable with having you know that hard conversation never in terms of getting rid of people or if i've got i'll never ever shy away from anything if i've got to step up if i've got to have that really difficult sometimes very confrontational conversation bring it on i will i will go into it because i will i know that i've i i've got to do that you've and that's where it comes down to you don't have to be a pricking knife but don't solid leaders but don't ever be a pushover don't ever shy away from it and that because that's when that's when kindness has gone too far yeah you know you you know we're not you know you if that's how you want to be there's that funny thing you know if you want to be that person then go sell ice cream yeah you know like it's yeah you know it's um because also at that point you're not being kind to yourself no you're not you're not and you're you're you're allowing people to take the piss out of you and that's the that's the that's the important thing and that's the thing i think and it's a great question you ask is that difficult and i know why you've asked that because i think so many people think you've got to be one or the other yes you've got to constantly almost put this mask on especially in your industry yeah i feel like there is a conception that you've got to be what you see on tv yeah you know the boiling point will stick around for a long time because people reference that every single day yeah you know shows like the bear i've spoken about this with many people on the podcast like people have got this conception of it but i think maybe my question to you is as an advice piece if someone is trying to be a great leader but they struggle with the hard almost having to be a hard person and having to be the bad guy let's call it what advice would you give them it's not as hard as you think and we all learn don't we in school to stand up to the bully and actually if anyone's ever stood up to the bully you actually realize it's not as bad as what you thought it was going to be and and i learned early on really really early on that when i've stood up to the bullet i'm not talking about the playground fight where the adrenaline's flowing you're thinking christ i'm gonna get us i'm gonna get a punch to the face and stuff like because i've also been in that situation i'm talking about just just go for it deep breath you know rehearse just sort of but don't shy away from it do not like be around the do not be around the bush do not try and sugarcoat it and go oh well no perhaps it's not best coming from me perhaps it's best coming from my you know you know my coo or perhaps it's best and enough don't you have got to step up because if you want to if you want to move forward if you want to be taken seriously if you want to be a true true leader you have got to run into the fire is it a key element of growth that's absolutely and one of one of the one of the best books i ever read on holiday was by simon snek and his leaders eat last and if you want to if you want to sort of get a bit of a fire in your belly and if you are struggling with that read that book yeah and that book is is all about sort of you know what it what it takes and it's not all shouting and screaming or but it's not allowing anyone to ever take the piss out of you if somebody is talking if somebody is talking shit if somebody is if somebody is essentially almost like a disease in your corporation in your network in your business they have to be eliminated and you have to remove that because the damage that that can have because it spreads especially as you grow it spreads into the culture and you've got to be on top of that and you have got to be the one that sets the example and it's not easy no i cannot give advice and say oh yeah it's easy it's not easy and some people find it really really uncomfortable but then you've got a question well who do you want to be and if you want to be you know that that person you visualize that manifestation you have that sort of you know where you see yourself and what you want you have to you have to be and again we see it all don't we and i try not to do you know i've tried today you know with yourself because it's just i feel so many people walking around at the moment just spurting and spouting out stuff that they you know that they see you know like i say i go back to like the bruce lee quotes yeah underqualified opinions yeah exactly and i don't ever want to be that and you know i'll get get get you know be be comfortable with the uncomfortable and all of those sorts of things but you've just got to lean into it and and that's that's probably one i i sort of do i i sometimes i actually almost physically kind of almost grip my teeth and lean in like almost feel myself kind of lean lean into it feels more real doesn't it it does feel more real and and you know sometimes you know if i know i'm going into something that's going to be very very difficult i'll rehearse because you know from having the television experience and stuff like that you know like everything i do i take ultra serious if i'm going on saturday kitchen i'm i'm i'm turning up there to do a job like i'm going into service it's not oh it's a bit of tv oh it's a bit of fun or stuff it's all private for me all that kind of stuff if i'm going into a brand partnership if i'm going into a demonstration whatever it is i'm i'm doing i'm going in ultra focused i'm there to do a job i'm not here to you know because oh yeah this is the cool side of what i do and stuff like that because all these things can lead to other things and these things are important you're there to do a job you know i'm there to sort of make sure that when people watch saturday kitchen or you know they see me on his show or a sunday brunch or something like that that they go never heard of this bloke he's got places down in cornwall we're going down to cornwall this year yeah go and check out one of his places and then this is where the magic sort of takes place and you know giving you some sort of nuggets of yeah what's worked for me is so people because people say to you know so the telly do you like it do you do it yeah one i do like it i wouldn't do it if i didn't like it i do like it I enjoy it I take it absolutely like ultra serious and I'm focused with it and I want to deliver a good job whether it's what whatever I'm doing I want to do a good job because you never know who's watching and you never know if that's a new customer you know a customer that we a regular whatever so then they watch a show and then they say do you know what we'll go and check him out We like what he's about And so I've never heard of him But let's go and see it And then when they come and see it It lives up to expectation And then when it lives up to expectation We are all wrapped up in the success of it It's not about me It's not just about me going and doing the show Everyone's benefiting from it Because then the trunk They leave a good tip And the trunk gets bigger And we get bigger And we aren't just Oh yeah, I saw him on telly but yeah went there yeah another another chef on tv what a load of shit you know they're like do you think the tv stuff gives pressures of the team yeah of course it does but we talk about it as a team really and all the team and that's what i say and and and i love that analogy that we are all wrapped up in each other's success yeah because then they're wrapped up it's not just about me going and doing the show it's then everybody is wrapped up in it because then we grow and then And when we grow, positions open up, salaries get bigger, you know, bonuses and profit shares and which we do within our businesses.

1:30:18And like I said, our trunk system and everything, it all grows and we all get wrapped up in it. And that's the beauty of getting the magic of it right. It's never about, oh, yeah, you know, because if I wanted to be, if I'd wanted to, you know, be famous and I would have gone to drama school or gone to.

1:30:36Olly Fawcett:or you would just do the tv stuff and weigh more right and not have the sights of the restaurants like i say when i came into this it was you know delia and anthony world thompson yeah gary rhodes yeah you you never went when i became a chef you never went into it because you thought oh there's a chance of being famous not not you had celebrity chefs but you just thought well that's what they do yeah i'm just going to be a chef but our our industry has evolved into that and i and and now you have to be everything you have to be a great chef you have to be a great businessman you have to be great front of house you have to be great media you have to be you know great on tv if you're going to do you know if you do go down that road you don't have to go down that road you have to be brilliant at marketing you have to have and wear so many hats in order to make it work and and it can work and there's so many people right now doing a brilliant job at it i'm not going to deny it's really really tough at the moment and and yeah we all know you know about getting into politics that this government you know are not making it yeah you know i think not making it any easier is it is it is it is drastically you know sort of dampening it down it's uh you know for me but it's a disaster yes but you know i i can't sort of get you know i can't kind of make that my focus i've just got to be like right okay well i'm 21 years into this this is my livelihood and right what do we need to do what do we have to do to adapt and anyone right now just you know just keep going keep you know don't don't stand still just look at it for some people there's just not an option for some people they just cannot get the numbers to work they cannot get the punters through the door and that is been through quite a lot devastating yeah in your five locations now soon to be said yes you've gone through i mean you went through a little bit of the economic downturn in 2008 you've gone through covid various different governments and now where we are today for the five locations you have how have you guys survived

1:32:51Olly Fawcett:if i was to say how have we survived and grown actually in that same time yeah just being on and all over the stuff that quite a lot of i would say chef-led businesses don't feel is necessarily important or they don't want to put the work in to look at those things and what I mean by that is and this goes back to having a great mentor in in in someone like Derek I used to be that person when I opened number six I just wanted to it was about my ego it was about the food and it was about what I wanted to cook I didn't know the true cost of that dish and then i met somebody that showed me the true cost of that dish and it was a sea bass dish was the first time i'd ever costed a dish on a spreadsheet had you not done that at hospital road or anything because there was there was but there was gordon ramsay holdings big office so we would do the stock count and then we would produce stock count and then as long as we were making 70 percent margin we were that that was that was our job got it so this is your first kind of business experience business experience and uh and i've i'm full of ego aren't i because i've come from you know i've come from gordon and marcus and gary and these amazing chefs and i've got with the first dish we cost is this sea bass dish wild sea bass and i always remember the cost of it was going to be 35 pounds the cost of it as in to put on the menu to the customer right oh sorry in 2005 and five so i've said to i said to do i can't charge 35 pound for it you know one nobody knows who the hell i am yeah and that's way too expensive thinking he'd go okay well we'll just charge less but i'm like quid instead yeah and he just he just stayed silent and i looked at him and he went so what are you going to do what do you mean what am i going to do or just charge less he went what do you mean charge less he said i've just shown you that there's your there's your VAT there's your there's your five percent wastage there's your nominal ingredients the bit of oil you're going to put in the pan the butter to baste it the time the um the seasoning this is how granular yeah we're talking yeah then the column above the box above was the sea bass itself all of the different components going with it then the nominal ingredients then the VAT then the wastage then the margin that we needed to make which back then was 70 so i went okay and i knew he meant business and it was his business i was just head chef it was his business him and his son so i'm like okay so i put a mackerel dish on and it was i remember it was mackerel and it was um some lovely like a vinaigrette of like roasted peppers and couscous it was still a lovely dish but boy did my ego take a take a beating because it wasn't what I truly wanted to do and I'm like for me I've come from this environment and back then Ollie mackerel was in cafes and yeah yeah stuff like that you know chef like me didn't cook mackerel you know and it was a huge wake-up call and I loved it and i enjoyed it and it become addictive and it showed me that right well this is what i need to do to run a business efficiently on food but that's just food then i've got a bit then i had to learn the liquor gp and what i needed to get from liquor and and the wastage that comes with you know you know i want you know wanted to have a wine list where there was you know like dozens of wines by the glass but the more wines you have by the glass if you're not selling that wine and there wasn't systems like verdavan and all of those kind of things then so i had to get really smart with that and then wage percentage well i've i've come from an environment where we've got three or four kitchen porters with us every day and now all of a sudden i'm looking at the wages and you say yeah but your wage percentage your wage percentage is going to be over 28 so but you're not busy enough you haven't got the occupancy because no one knew who we were we were busy friday and saturdays right that's the restaurant we were right the rest of the week we were dead so now now i'm doing the washing up so when you say about you did the washing up yeah so when you say about the fall from grace and kind of coming down here and nobody knows who we are so i'm i'm washing up i can't afford kitchen porters i can't cook the food that i think i want to cook i'm making sandwiches we're pumping out scones and pastries and by the way we're not pumping out gourmet scones and making french laminate patisserie pastries we're buying pastries in from bookers and trying to knock them out with a couple of quid extra on them with fondant icing and the hoping that this is going to take off and that people are going to enjoy it and slowly but surely they did and we were busy when the children were off school because that's what it was like in cornwall back in those days and then fast forward to great british menu uh i got asked to do great british menu which in itself was just a massive shock and really yeah just really you know because you're like you see this show yeah this is the first bit of tv i've ever done every chef that's been on this podcast says it's the one show that every chef also watches as well yeah right yeah it is it is and and let me tell you you can sit there as an armchair chef that's never done it and criticize the chef that's on it but i tell you what when you walk into that kitchen especially with the the older kitchen that used to be filmed in camden yeah christ almighty it's a baptism of fire you walk in there there's cameras everywhere and you realize you are just a small cog in a very very kind of big sort of turning wheel and it is brutal and i got through to finals week and then i got to the banquet and on finals week uh back then um uh oliver paineton at my fish course went into the into finals week and i it was richard corrigan was the guest chef judge it was richard corrigan obviously matthew four pru leaf and oliver paineton and they all loved it and they gave me 10 out of 10 and oliver paineton said i do i urge everyone to get to padstow there's a new kid on the block and when that aired oh i had no idea he said that and the only time i learned that he said that was when it aired and i am telling you mate we back then as well we had no infrastructure then or the systems that we had we have now the telephone was a cordless phone and the cordless phone was connected to the chip and pin machine so when the we had one line so when so but we were like oh yeah but when people are paying we're not answering the phone but the phones went ballistic so the chip and pin wouldn't work and and vice versa problems you never thought you'd have ever the website the website just completely crashed every day and we had that like this kind of like two bob website and like like there's a bloke ringing us up saying your website i don't know how to fix it it just keeps crashing and stuff and it was just amazing and and i do sort of credit that sort of great british menu and that kind of you know especially as well because I had more air time because I obviously had I did well in regionals so you get a week of filming yeah then I did well in finals week so you got another week of filming and then you got the banquet which you win so you get a lot of air time and then you've got sort of comments like that from Ollie and then I got the fair you know the famous fairground dessert to the banquet and it just put us on the map yeah and that was that changing everything from yeah book of sandwiches to everything to everything it just do you think the the humbling moment that you had where things weren't going right pre going on the show do you think that was really important to be successful today definitely everything the sandwiches the pastries not doing any customers going to the cinema three nights in a row you know to watch you know different films because no one turned up all of the just the pure grit and like determination to to just keep going keep hustling don't stop you know lose the ego that like what do you want paul do you want do you want to do you want to have your own restaurant and are you too good to make a sandwich are you too good to serve a scone you know or just keep believing that it won't always be like this yeah it will come and it goes back to your question with you know do you think people kind of give in too early definitely i think there would have been a lot of people a lot of chefs now especially like chefs now that would have been in my shoes and gone fuck this this is this is this is i i haven't i haven't i haven't i haven't worked in a one star a two star two star that's then gone to a three star worked for you know gordon ramsay gary rose marcus wearing all the experience and they'll be fucking making sandwiches and you know and and you know serving cream teas and pastries and all of those sorts of things that we you know that we were doing then but i i just i just yeah just kept going yeah i can't i can't really give you a defining it's kind of it in a way though isn't it just like that's all it really needs to be sometimes you just have like you no matter what you've done in your past when things aren't going right keep keep going yeah you know keep pushing through yeah i know we're going to run out of time soon especially with the uh the storm coming in from france but what i do want to ask you about is your new project yes because this thing we were talking about it before we started filming you've got everything on the line on this one yeah so for the remaining couple of minutes we've got tell me everything about it and why you're doing this now at this point in your career yeah I'm gonna be really honest because I think it's good to be really really really honest and stuff and I don't mind you know there's certain things I think you know you don't share but this is make or break for myself and Emma and and and everyone you know my team that you know involved with me we've me and Emma have personally remortgaged our home we've remortgaged our businesses we've borrowed a an obscene amount of money right um to to to fund this and to do it and i'm 46 years old and it's now or never ollie it's now or never and it's a huge risk it's a calculated risk but i believe in it and i believe thatst ennodoc is a sleeping giant and it's rock's only hotel yeah and i've absolutely wholeheartedly believe in the vision that we have for this in by making it a destination like where we're sat now that is for everybody it is not a hotel that's just for its residents and just for lots and lots of sort of space where people wander around and go from drift from lounge to lounge sipping on a flat white it is for everyone who is coming to cornwall who lives in cornwall who is local to know that st ennodoc is a place that has got the most beautiful stunning views of the camel estuary and beyond and if you are down here on a camping holiday a caravan holiday or you're in a 10 grand a week holiday home or you are local and you live here and you've grown up here come on up sit on the terrace sit in the grill sit in the gardens have a drink it is for everybody as well as the hotel guests and i believe in it and emma believes in it and we've put our absolute yeah as we do with everything as we our last opening was where we're sat here now ollie which was the mariners and um failure is it's it's it's just it's just non-negotiable i've i've i've i visualize it i i i talk about it i behave like it's done i behave like it's it's it's successful already and it is and and i i just know that this is it's almost like feels kind of legacy this this i was gonna that was my question to you is this is this the sort of stake in the ground on the legacy yeah and and and i think you know people look at what we've done and i will say to you that more judgment than luck that i've resisted london i've had offers to go to the middle east to go back to london you know and and stuff and And a lot of chefs, you know, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, you know, these places, you know, there's huge wealth there and busy, create busy restaurants.

1:45:39And arguably it's easier as well, like in a way, just because of the kind of cash in that place. Yeah. And, you know, license deals and all those sorts of things. And whether that's, whether that's Derek, whether, you know, Gordon has said to me, you know, you've built something brilliant here and you've built something that the resource is all close to one another. if someone's if they've got a couple of people here sick today they know that they can phone one of the other restaurants and say what are you like have you got someone spare on the road so have you got someone on your team we can phone full ecosystem it's a full ecosystem and one of the things i'm most proud of is that not only have we created a collection that are all near one another and they're connected by this lovely the romance of the ferry and the water taxi and that and it's so beautiful and like where we are now but every menu is completely and utterly different they are not watered down versions of a of a style and when you go to number six you know that you're entering a michelin star you're going for this is i couldn't cook this at home i could not recreate this at home it's like theater it's you're going to the theater you're locked in and you're going to have this magical experience and it's fine dining michelin star and it's beautiful but it's not fine dining in a sense that's sort of you know you're whispering and you know like oh well you know like we're privileged to be here no no no and this goes for all of our places but we're privileged to have you we're thank you for choosing us thank you there's lots of choice but you chose us so number six is you know you know so many of our games we get lots of locals but you know celebrating weddings and um you know anniversaries birthdays cafe reggiano we make all our own pizzas beautiful pasta dishes you know lots of kind of mediterranean italian influence mariners here the first dish i wrote for this menu was a plowman's i had to have a plowman's because i love a plowman's and i wanted to put a plowman's on the menu and then for me a public house was always dishes it wasn't sort of concept it was just always a bit of everything great burger add cheese and bacon for a quid back in the day you know a curry fried chicken that sort of thing and thenst ennodoc is going to have a real nice focus more on sort of you know there's going to be some lovely dishes you know kind of with a lot of kind of far east influence indian influence can have a nice grill really shine a light on sort of you know a lot of meats and fish cooked over fire but again totally accessible so you can go up there and you can have a lovely burger you can have you know um and when i say a nice focus on indian we'll have a nice selection of kind of indian small plates good selection a kind of nice a butter chicken a lovely you know a lovely um you know uh malay chicken and lamb lamb uh tikka um sorry lamb masala chops and stuff like that so yeah a real kind of um diverse range a diverse repertoire what are you most excited for people to

1:48:43Olly Fawcett:see when it opens the food's obviously going to be sensational but you've done so much work in that infrastructure and the way everything is the rooms obviously it's 21 21 bedrooms yeah so what is it you think people are going to really be blown away by yeah you're right it's it's what we've done um the interior design from emma and eve um so eve is our interior design um consultant that emma works with is breathtaking really and i love our style you know we don't we let the outside do the talking um the outside's beautiful we don't rely on that that's in itself its own thing so what we want to do is give people something that's not so obvious it's not none of our properties are sort of that obvious seaside you know there's not pictures of you know like the estuary and seagulls and sort of fishermen on the walls and stuff like that and you know we sort of don't you know there's lots of lovely places that do that we want to sort of bring a more eclectic style in and and just something that people go i wasn't expecting you know i wasn't expecting that yeah and i suppose yeah like you said about the you know the legacy stuff that yeah we we've had a go and we've we've taken what i feel if we'd not taken onst anadoc i feel it would have been knocked down uh the whole building i feel the whole building i think it the price had got to such a point that it was you know you had lots of property developers sniffing around we were the only hospitality operators that were that were looking at this and i feel that we've kept something alive that's been there since 1925 i feel that we are now going to create so many more jobs um you know the employment for there is well over 100 which in total ollie now takes our business so because you're at 200 already what's around here we're we're we're we're just north of 300 um employees at the moment and when i you know when you like you say when you go back to the sandwiches and the sandwich days and all of that there was three of us so um yeah it's been it's been quite quite the journey and there's 15 years there's no super head office somewhere everything is here you know we've got an amazing base hq over in padstow which we call water's edge which is where we have guest relations social media chelsea our coo um carol john uh hr everything um so yeah you know i walk in there ollie a lot of the time and i find myself sometimes looking at it and you know you just sort of seeing it there's this sort of sign on the wall you know the Ainsworth collection 2009 to 2000 and you know to to now it also established 2009 and yeah it's it's it's humbling and and I always and I always will be humbled by it I never ever ever take any of this for granted and it was one of the lessons I learned from Gordon he always used to say that to us you know never ever ever take it for granted you don't because as quick as you can build these things you know you start to take these things for granted or become too sure of yourself you know you can you can trip up so self-sabotage is so common in business right like it's just a huge a lot of the things that go wrong are all because of yeah ego yeah you know that's where it gets where it comes from ego you're absolutely right ego and and just not being humble and and and a lot of the time you see it you know like treating people like shit or thinking you're better than people you you're not and and again you've only got to look at the like as look the people i've mentioned to you on this podcast of the people i absolutely you know respect and like say when you're in the company of someone like a ross brawn you can just see such a people person such a such a listener such a sort of an observer you know with a mind that's kind of and and and those are the people that i just i find fascinating and and and interesting and and yeah i i just i just um never ever take any of this for you know for for granted and and like i say that's what i want people to see when they come up tost ennodoc to see that yeah we've had a go and we've taken something on that was so risky and such a gamble but it's totally paid off because it's now or never you've got to take these risks now because because if it if it's a thriving market if everything was brilliant then we wouldn't have even been able to afford to buy it let alone go and do this refurbishment that we're doing too yeah totally so my last question paul and thank you for everything you said so far it's been fascinating to hear you but what does it take to build the business you built today I know these are common words, but it's, it's, it's absolute resilience, humility.