A Chef’s Wild Ride From Rebellion To Michelin Kitchens

A beatbox nickname, two expulsions, a near-miss with a gang, and a single dishwashing shift that changed everything. Matt Burgess AKA matblak joins us to chart a wild, human journey from a chaotic Wellington childhood to Michelin-level kitchens, catertainment stages, and a sober, purposeful life built around live fire and community.

We dive into the moments that bent the arc: a catering course where childhood food lessons suddenly become a superpower; the night a back door opens onto a brigade of glorious misfits; and a Cannes detour that turns into a two-star education in timing, cleanliness, and respect for ingredients. Back in London, Matt steps onto the glass-box stage of Mays, grinds through 90 to 100-hour weeks, and learns how standards shape flavour as much as salt does. Jamie Oliver stops being a punchline and becomes a partner, from school dinners that shift policy to Threadneedle Street’s elegant, ingredient-led menus.

Then the story flips again. At a star-packed book launch, an outrageous charcuterie board meets Christian “DJ BBQ” Stevenson’s playlist, and fire finds a soundtrack. Festivals become labs for reverse-flow smokers, airflow, and coal management. The pandemic forces a pivot: a Big Green Egg on a West London balcony, suppliers sending whole haunches, a neighbourhood WhatsApp turning into a pop-up delivery brand. Through grief and reflection after his mum’s passing, Matt chooses reinvention—leaving a senior post at Caravan to build a consultancy, launch sauces, host supper clubs, and hit festival stages across the UK. Seven years sober, he’s frank about the pull of old habits and the deeper satisfaction of craft, mentoring, and feeding people well.

If you care about food as a trade, not a trend; if you’re curious how live-fire cooking really works; if you’re chasing a second chance or planning a pivot, Matt’s story brings heat, humour, and hope. Hit follow, share this with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave us a review with the moment that stuck with you most.

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Transcript

Sponsor And Setup

Owen 0:00

Today's episode is brought to you by AOS Kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.

Meet Matt “Black” Burgess

Dan 0:17

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Meet and Greet of Barbecue Podcast. Today we have something very special for you. We were lucky enough to get a bit of time with Matt Black, who has a phenomenal story about how he got into cooking and barbecue. But I'm gonna let Matt go through all of this. This is part one of our episodes with Matt, and this is his story. Without much further ado, here's Matt. Hello, Matt. Thank you so much for taking time to speak to us today. Um before we go any further, please do introduce yourself to everyone that's listening.

Mat Blak 0:54

Absolutely. Um, hello everybody. My name is Matt Burgess, aka Mat Blak. A lot of people have asked me where I've got Matt Black from, and yes, you're correct. I am a 52-year-old male. Still, there's kept his hip-hop name from when he was 16 years old. I don't know why I have done that, but it kind of is cool and it has followed me around everywhere. So that's where the name Mat Blak came from.

Owen 1:18

Um, I was kickers in with a bit of a rap or no, no, I'm not.

Mat Blak 1:24

No, no, there's absolutely no way. Back in like 1988, that would have been really cool. Right now, in 2026, I would look absolutely stupid. But um, yeah, it was um I was in a situation where I um was in a beat box competition and I didn't have a hip hop name. And on the side of the stage, there was a uh painting of Matt Black emulsion, and that's where I said that's gonna be my hip hop name, and that was ever since I was 16. And I walked out on stage and I won. I was the Wellington beatbox champion in 1988, which is no, I'm not gonna do beatbox, but thanks for asking.

Dan 2:06

Hey, at least you didn't go with the other option of emulsion, you know?

Teenage Rebellion And Family Collapse

Mat Blak 2:10

Yeah, it was. I did consider it. No, I could never really spell it because I'm dyslexic, so yeah.

Dan 2:16

Well, how how did you go from that point into your journey into cooking?

Expulsions, Borstal, And The Brink

A Reluctant Start In Kitchens

Factory Work, Crime, And A Near-Miss With A Gang

The Night A Kitchen Changed Everything

Choosing The Trade And Leveling Up

Lottery Twist And Leaving New Zealand

Mat Blak 2:25

Yeah, it was it was a crazy, I think I you know, it should probably start from the beginning. Um, and I I will try and get through this as quick as possible. You know, a normal childhood, um, you know, went to school as most other kids did, and um, you know, my my mother was um working at a um a large sort of car firm where it was called Cable Price Toyota, it was a Japanese car firm, and um she was secretary to the director there, the CEO. Um, so you know, think life was good, money was good, everything was coming through. And then when I reached probably around about 10 or 11 years old, um, I started getting those pangs of rebelliousness and stuff. So I thought um, you know, I I probably was showing off way too much in school and and in class and you know, doing stupid things. And I started sort of getting into fighting and you know, marijuana was very um prevalent in New Zealand at the time. Um, so you know, I kind of started getting into that around about 10 and 11. Um, and then my mum uh sadly got made redundant. Um, and that kind of like changed all of our lives. Um, I'm an only child, I've never met my father. He took off when I was young, I have no brothers or sisters, and um so when she was made redundant, um, she got quite a large payout. And um her dream and aspirations was always to she loves food and she's always loved food. She's she was a very proficient home cook, but um, she wanted to run some type of food operation. Her um parents, my grandparents, uh, were fantastic gardeners and real old school British home cooks. Um, they're from the UK. Um, they moved over in the early 1920s. Um, so my mum was sort of brought up and inspired by that. So she decided to buy a delicatessen, um, and she started like um you know, making all the things within a delicatessen, things like charcutries and salamis and salads and you know, all these incredible things to, you know, put on display. But sadly, just up the road, just after she opens, there was a large supermarket that opened, and that just killed her. And so over those two years of my teenage years, probably 13 to 14, I watched um her decline into um alcoholism. I watched her business decline into just the most horrific place where you know she um had to let it go and she was declared bankrupt. And, you know, the bailiffs came and emptied our house, and we came home and there was nothing. And, you know, we went from living a very comfortable life to absolutely having nothing. And uh at that time, um, obviously, that I got caught um at school um smoking marijuana, and um obviously it was put in front of me that I would either have to go to a drug rehabilitation um place um or um I would be expelled. So that was sort of the terms of the suspension that I was doing. Um just to remind you, I was 13 years old. So when I walked into this drug rehabilitation center, um there was Henry and Steve, who were both heroin addicts for 30 years, and this was sort of the level of people that I was having to um be involved with um for a month, and it just made me super uncomfortable. And I think that um, and it's one of the things that I try to do now is educate people about drugs because you know there are very different drugs out there and very different levels of drugs and what they do. But it anyway, you know, it was a no-compromise with the headmaster of the school that I was going to, and he said, You either do this or you leave. Um, and us trying to explain to him going, the heroin and marijuana are very different drugs. Um, and actually, you're probably putting a 13-year-old child in more danger to be around this. So, anyway, cut long story short, um, I was expelled from that school. Um, I got given a second chance to go to another school. Um and uh it was kind of like a correspondence school for young uh kids who were in similar situations to me. Some were there from victims of you know abuse, some were from you know other sort of um uh underprivileged backgrounds, and some kids were like me who had been expelled. So it was a really great environment, really beautiful environment. And I got the uh opportunity there um to be um like sort of class captain or school captain, and um I sort of you know took it was a very strange role for me to take because I'd never been in uh a situation of leadership. And I was only a kid, I was like 14 years old at the time, and to be given this opportunity was really weird. But um, and it was very much a self-sufficient school where um you do correspondence work, and every now and then the director would come down and they would check the the schoolwork that you're doing and making sure that you're doing. And one day he left the school to me and he said, Look, I trust you, you're gonna, you know, look after everyone in the school. And I did, and we had such a great day. We cleaned everything up, and and as an incentive and as a thank you from me, I decided to blow the whole school out with marijuana. And uh, so it was the second school I was expelled from. Then I went to a place called Potter College, where um it was a lot, it was really strict. It was one of the toughest schools in the country, and um I sort of finished my uh work there. So um within that environment, um, it was I think you call it Borstal over here in New Zealand, we call it Tapan, which is kind of like a boys' home, and it's not so much a prison, but it kind of is like you're you're under house arrest, you can't go out. Um, I won't get into sort of what I got into to get there, but you know, it was really going off the handles. I was like 15 years old, my mum's an alcoholic, I've been kicked out of school, I had no life, there was no chance. I I'd recently I was 14 years old, I got my girlfriend pregnant, you know. It was just I I was on the path to destruction, basically. Yeah, and so when I finished the school, um I decided that my only dream was to join a gang. And um, that was my sort of main goal. Now, for you to go on to we called it the dole. I think you used to call it that over here. Now you call it universal credit, I believe. Um, but back in New Zealand, for you to go on to that for somebody who was my age, you had to prove that you were um actively looking for work. And by doing this, they had schemes called access schemes. And so there was two access schemes that were available to me. One was catering, and the other one was horticulture. Now, obviously, I'm gonna choose horticulture because why? I want to learn how to grow marijuana and sell it. So I started this horticulture course, and I realized very quickly that it was hard fucking work, working really hard. So um I lasted there, I think it was about two days, to be honest, and I was quite impressed uh with myself that I lasted that long. Um, and then obviously, going back to my care worker or my social care worker, um, they were like, Well, you're gonna have to do the catering side for me, working in the kitchen. Um, and I know you can't really say this, but I'm gonna say this now. It's kind of like it back then, it wasn't a very um honorable job. It was considered to be quite girly, you know, it's like woman's supposed to be in the kitchen, and that shows how much time's have passed anyway. Um, so I wasn't really happy about going there, but I had to do this to get the doll. So when I went in there, um I started what was being shown things like how to trust a chicken, how to boil an egg, the different elements of eggs and what they do and how they perform differently and different dishes and stuff. And um, weirdly, I I knew most of this stuff that the tutor was was showing me, and he was saying sort of things like make an omelette, and you know, I knocked up an omelette and I look around me at the other 17 students, and they were just absolutely shit fucking shit everywhere. It was awful. Oh, are we allowed to swear on this? Yeah. I my apologise if you say what the fuck you want. Okay, cool. Thank you. I just I should have asked that. Um, and yeah, so I was like in this environment where the tutor was like, Hey, like, where did you learn to cook like this? Um, and I had read I didn't realize, but um, you know, at that point I sort of went back in my mind and was like, How did I do that? And it was my mum who showed me as a young child as I was growing up that that was her love language to me, was always like, Let me cook for you, let me show you. And she would used to do things like, Okay, you know, this is how I boil an egg, and and this is in there. And like I was like, I remember these things like when I was four, five, six years old, sitting on the kitchen floor and just watching my mum make these incredible dishes. And I was, I thought everybody knew this, and I thought, like arrogantly, that every single home was like my home that every single mum and parent and father could cook as well as my mum. And then I really quickly realized, especially in this room, that I was in with all these really bad, uncompetent chefs. Um, that yeah, I I actually had a skill, and it was my first time that I was like, oh wow, actually, I'm I'm finally good at something in my life rather than smoking weed um or you know, trying to grow marijuana, which um kept on dying on me anyway when I did try to grow it. Um, so the the the chef said to me, um, you know, like when you leave this course, I think that you should consider a job in catering. Um, so when I left the course, I went, fuck that, I'm never doing that again. It's fucking shit. Um, and got onto the doll, which I was so happy about. Um, so then I just proceeded to spend the next couple of years after that smoking marijuana um and not really doing too much. And uh a friend of mine that was working uh close to where my mum lives um said that there had been a job opening happened at this factory that made fresh pasta. So why don't you go down? It's a couple of days a week, you're just packing boxes, it's you know, for sending off to supermarkets. So I was like, okay, yeah, can make a bit of extra cash on the dole and stuff. And I went there and um it was my first real job of working with food. So it was a sort of a large factory that had these Italian ravioli machines and fresh pasta machines that would spit out these uh, you know, pasta shapes onto these pasteurizer machines. They would go through like this heated sort of steam treatment and then go onto these big cooling racks, and then they'll come to you and you'd weigh them out into these containers and they put them onto these sort of vacpack machines, vacpack them, then you'd pack them in boxes and they'll go and they'd go out. So I was doing that and I got into the work and I got into like the value of money and you know how uh things were really helping. And I was like, oh my god, I can actually can you know contribute to mum. And you know, by this time, mum was sort of coming out of her depression a little bit and thinking maybe I should get back into work, and you know, it was really hard on her, but you know, that was her dream, and I watched her dream just was destroyed in front of her. Um, and that was really, really hard. But you know, being able to provide for my mum and to to you know give her some money and so she could just like survive um was was really satisfying. And I felt like finally in my life that I was like kind of making a difference. Still, my dream was to join a gang. It was one of the New Zealand's biggest gangs, and my best friend at the time um was um, you know, gearing up to prospect for it. And you know, with doing that, we were doing a lot of illegal activities. He was a fighter, I was more sort of like a thief, and you know, I did burglaries and robberies and sort of things like this. And we we're trying to sort of get a bit of notoriety to get into the gang. And uh it came up to it came up to the time where we were supposed to go to the pad, basically, and you go through a prospect uh thing. Um and the prospect thing is you know, you'll get the hell beaten out of you, and then once if you can handle it and you can stand up afterwards, then you'll get given a patch or a t-shirt and say that you're in the gang. Um, luckily at that time, I had some really good friends around me, and you know, they sort of spoke to me during the day and said, like, nah, you shouldn't do this. Like you're better than this. Like, I think that you shouldn't do this, just let him go. And he came over and I gave him back like the t-shirt that we were supposed to wear, and I said, Look, I'm not gonna go with you. Um, and he went and he was hospitalized for three months. So I was very much I dodged a huge bullet that day. Um, and it was re it was really hard for me to watch. I had to go into um hospital and go visit my friend, and basically he came from a very bad background, so didn't have any parents or any family that really loved him. So it was just me and my mum that were like kind of caring for him. So it was that was a really sort of tough thing to see. Um, but you know, I had a job and and life was reasonably okay. You know, weed was still very uh predominant in my life and sort of things were ticking over. And then one day I had a phone call from a very good, an old school friend of mine, and he called me up on a Friday afternoon and said, Hey, uh my kitchen hand uh or kitchen porter over here um has cut his hand. I'm working at this restaurant. Can you come and help us out for one night? Um, I didn't really want to do it. I'm just like, look, I I'd never want to be a chef. I don't want to fucking come into your kitchen. I don't want to wear those stupid hats and stuff like this. And he goes, please just come, like just when I'll pay you a hundred dollars. So a bit of math in my head, I worked out I could buy half an ounce with that. So I was like, I'm on my bike, I'm struggling. Like you knew your priorities. I'm like, I'm there, I'm there. Don't worry. Don't worry. Um, and yeah, it was um it was a really defining moment in my life. I when I walked through that back door, um, you know, I can still remember the smell of the bins, I can still remember the smell of the kitchen, I can still remember the first two chefs that I saw. And I walked in, and it was it was kind of like, oh wow, fucking hell. Everyone here in this place is like me. They're all social outcasts and they're all fucking degenerates, exactly like me. And you know, you had all these fucking really like weird, fucking big, burly tattooed neck tattoos, face tattoos, ex-prisoners, all cooking the most beautiful food I'd ever seen in my life. And I was sitting there, I was like fuck just blown away. They caught me hook, line, and sinker, and I was just like, absolutely, this is me. This is fucking me. I absolutely love this. And then at you know, after service, um, I was terrible that night, by the way. Um, and I have no idea why at the end of the night um that they did offer me a job. Um, you know, generally, like you you've got to work at a pace when you're working in a restaurant like this because all the dishes and everything just get like all piled up and stuff, and you know, by the time service ended, like my section was just covered in shit and everywhere. And then the chefs had to finish cooking and come and help me because I was just too slow. But at the end, the chef called me out into the restaurant and gave me a shot of tequila and a beer and said, Um, you know, I've heard about your story, I've heard about like, you know, um your background. I'm gonna throw you a bit of a bone here. And why don't you come and work for me and I'll teach you how to cook? Um, so I was like, No, I I fucking hate kitchens. I home smoke weed. And he's like, Well, look, just go home, have a think about it. And I did. I thought about it really hard over the weekend. And um, again, I don't I didn't have very male, many male role models in my life at the time. But my uncle, um, who lived uh in another city in New Zealand, um, I called him and I asked him, and he's like, Well, you know, you can still do what you love. And my passion at the time was music, and he's like, You can still do your music, but it's good that if you learn a trade, you've got something to fall back on and later on in life. So just do it and see what you think. So I did. I did. I jumped into the kitchen and I started working and um, you know, learning the trade, and you know, there was just um crazy um antidotes and scenarios that I could like go on for forever, but I realized that that we haven't even reached my uh journey to London yet. So we'll brush over that a little bit. But um, you know, if I'm gonna fast forward it, I'll fast forward it, you know, till I was about 23, 24 years old. And um, I had moved out of mum's and I was cooking um in a restaurant in New Zealand. It was one of the hottest new openings in New Zealand, and you know, I was a very proficient chef. I'd been cooking for about eight years since then. And um, a friend of mine um was uh just finishing uni and he said, Look, I'm going to travel. And my my dream was always to go to England. Um, one because the drugs were really cheap and this incredible club scene. So that was my only reason wanting to come here was go clubbing and take drugs. That's it. That's all I wanted to do. So um he got a loan from a like quite a large loan for when you finished university in New Zealand. Your bank offered you, we're gonna give you a startup loan to start your own business. So obviously, with the irresponsible fucking idiots we were, we took this money and said, fuck, let's go traveling. And anyway, before we he's like, I'm gonna go do a ski season in Queenstown, and then he'll come back to Wellington, and then me and him are gonna fly to Australia and we're gonna do this. And I was like, I was so happy. And he goes, But I need you to save some money. I was fucking useless at saving money. I was easily addicted to marijuana, and that's all I wanted to do. But he had the money, you know. So I was like, Oh, I'm okay. Like, I could save up a couple of hundred bucks and we'll go there, we'll get a job, and then I'll be fine. Six months later, it came, turned up to my house, and he turns around to me um and says, So sorry, I spent all the money. I was like, fucking we want to go with weed, and I was like, Oh, you fuck man. So look, I've only got enough money for my ticket, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to Australia, I'm gonna get a job, and then um we're going to I will save up some money, I'll pay for your ticket, you come over, you come work with me where I'm working. It made a lot of sense in my head. I was like, okay, yep, that's cool. I was quite dejected because I was like, fuck, I just want to get out of New Zealand, I just want to do this. At that moment, and this is a real true story. At that moment, my girlfriend walked out and she had the cordless phone. So we didn't have mobiles then. She had the cordless phone and Mum's on the phone. Um, there's there's something wrong. And so I was like, fuck, what's going on? She's like, I need you to come home right now. Right now. Like, don't even fucking question it. Skin to a taxi, a car, whatever. Just I need you home. So obviously I had my best friend there, my girlfriend. We fucking jumped into his car straight away. Fucking mad drive all the way back to Miramar, where I where my mum lives. And as we pulled up, I saw her on the veranda and she's like bawling her eyes out, hands, hands in her head. Um, so I bolted out of the car, grabbed her, and I picked her up. And I just like we had been burgled um probably about a year and a half earlier. And they basically, like, you know, after the bailiffs came originally and took pretty much everything, the only stuff that we had left was like my grandmother's wedding ring and some nice jewelry for my mum and was burgled. So I was like, who the fuck has burgled us again? Like, why? Like, we have nothing. Like, what do they want? My dinosaur junior tapes. It's like I had nothing of value there. Yeah, and so I went and grabbed Mum, I lifted her up, and she pushed a piece of paper in my hand, and I opened it up, and it said 200,000 confirmation. And I looked at her, I said, What's this? And she goes, just one on a scratch card. And she had one $200,000 on a scratch card. And so within two weeks, I got the fuck out of New Zealand and never went back. Wow. It was such a sliding doors moment for something like that to happen. So, you know, when I'll never forget the day that we went to uh Camelot in New Zealand to go pick up the money. And um, you can you can be photographed and you can be in the paper and they give you the big check, or they can just do it privately, which what my mum opted for. I remember sitting in the room and they like handed her the check. And the first thing that she thought of is that she hadn't bought a vacuum cleaner in like 20 years, you know. And she's just like, Oh, I can get a vacuum cleaner now. I was like, Mum, you could probably get 30 vacuum cleaners now, and we'll have change, you know. Um, but yeah, obviously she got the money, she deposited it in her bank account. Um, and you know, while like we were sort of sitting there talking about what we want to do, like she was like, Well, oh, we've got two options. Like, one, I'm gonna put down a deposit on the house for you and set you up here in New Zealand for life. Or two, I want you to travel the world. And I was like, What would you do? And she's like, get the fuck out of here and never come back. You've got so much potential and you've you haven't discovered it yet. Said, like, you're really good at what you do, but like you you haven't found yourself. And she's like, When I lived in the UK, I found myself and I came back, and that's where I got like all my sort of passion from. And she was like, Yeah, just just go and do it. So, you know, within two weeks I was on a plane. Um, we decided to fly into Sydney first. I'd never been out of New Zealand in my life, it's 24 years old, and I flew into this incredible new country, and I was just dumbfounded with everything, you know, and being able to go to a place and not worry about money was one of the things that I I have never felt. But also, um, one of my biggest recommendations is that never give 50 grand to a 24-year-old drug addict. Oh gosh, what do you think that I wanted to do with that money consistently? And I had a great time, I have to say. Um, it was it was a lot of fun. I stayed in um Australia for a year, um, and inadvertently um I ended up working with the mafia. It wasn't intentional, and I had no idea that I was, but the the place where I was working, I didn't realize. I come to realize it now, but at the time being so young and naive, I was like, my god, like this is such a beautiful place, but there's no one that eats here, but it's just so fucking beautiful. And how do they afford to keep the doors open? But people coming to eat today, and we're getting but the best produce in the world, like San Manzano, tomatoes, fresh birata being flown in from Italy every day. I'm like, what the fuck? And they were obviously using it as a as a laundromat, basically, to obviously wash it, wash their money. But um, you know, the day that I kind of found out was um I was in the kitchen and the manager comes running and said, Oh, the boss is coming in. I was like, Oh, cool, be great to find him in. He goes, No, no, no, no, the boss is coming in. Like, you just like keep away, don't talk to him. He doesn't like people talking to him. I'm just like, Oh, okay, this is a bit weird. And then two guys, it was 40 degrees that day in Melbourne. Two guys walk into their willing full-long duffel coats, shotguns underneath their jackets, come in, they check everything, all my fridges, check my bag, check me, stand out either side of the door, and then a limo pulls up. This guy gets out, he has a coffee, and you're like, mm-hmm. Yeah, sure. Okay, I don't think I'm gonna work here anymore. I this place is not really for me. You know, don't really want to jump into this world. Like, I'm already like not great, but you know, I I um yeah, I I pretty much left that day, and um, yeah, then we obviously came over to the UK. And uh when we arrived here, um, you know, I did the typical Kiwi thing and slept on a uh slept on a sofa, and um there was a lot of British people that were staying in this house that I was uh staying at. And um, so the first thing I had to do was get a job. And I was like, so like how how do you do that here? You know, I just stepped off a plane at Heathrow and it was the biggest city, the biggest thing. The tube network scared that living crap out of me. It just I just couldn't work anything out. I've got no sense of direction. I was just so scared by the place. And um one of the English guys said, Oh, you buy this um paper from the off license called um called a loot, and inside every Thursday they'll have all the chef jobs there. So just have a look in that. So um I called the first one that I saw and um picked up the phone and spoke to a chef, and he's like, Look, I don't do um interviews, I just do trials. So if you could come uh to the restaurant at 7:30 in the morning and you'll work till about four, and we'll see how you do. And I was like, Cool. And he was like, Okay, do you know where Soho is? And I was like, No idea. And he was like, Okay, so I need you to come to Soho. Uh, you're gonna find a green door, knock on the door three times, a lady's gonna come down and get you, and they're gonna bring you up to the restaurant. Now, back in that day, that was kind of acceptable. I wouldn't fucking you know suggest to anybody to do that now in Soho.

Dan 28:41

You're probably gonna end up in very different experience.

unknown 28:45

Very different experience.

Australia, Mafia Restaurant, And Exit

Landing In London And Soho House Trial

Cannes Yacht And Two-Star French Education

Back To London: Ramsay Circle And Mays

Mat Blak 28:50

But um, you know, my first experience of walking through Soho at like, you know, seven o'clock in the morning was you know, a guy walking up to me and saying, Do you want to buy some socks? And I'm like, What? What's going on? You know, the concept of homeless people, we didn't have them in New Zealand at the time or that. So I didn't understand like who these people were and why they smelt like urine, and you know, and and just like they were trying to sell me crazy shit, like PlayStations and you know, half a bike. It was like, Oh, I've got half a bike. Do you want half a bike? Half a bike, like what the fuck am I gonna do? It was just like if you could imagine a really naive person from a village coming to this huge city and just finding out, like, and you know, at the time, Soho was just a massive crack den. It was filled with all these wonderful, beautiful creatives, you know, very much a huge gay community there and crackheads, you know. So it was just this amazingly crazy place for me to go. But um obviously I went there, knocked on the door, lady came down and got me. I went up to the kitchen, met the chef, and um, it was so house. And so house had just opened, basically. It was the hottest place in the UK. I had no idea, like I didn't know what Seo House was. I didn't even know the type of clientele that were coming in. So when the chefs were saying, Oh my god, David Beckham's out there, I was like, Who the fuck's that? Like, I've never heard them in my life. Like, you know, who are these spice girls? They're really pretty, but like I have no idea what they are. Like they shot the movie in So House, and I was there that day watching Nick Jones and um, you know, the general manager play their part. And I, you know, I had no idea who these people talking to Jerry Halliwell, going, Oh, you know, this is gonna be a good movie. It's a bit cheesy, though, isn't it? Like, and you know, it was just crazy to me. Um, but I did really well there, and from that point on, I went to um uh uh open Babbington House, which is their first hotel in Somerset, and um I did really well there as well. And as an incentive or as a thank you, they've also got a yacht out in Cannes where they used to sort of the best sort of workers within so House and Cafe Bohem, they'll take them out to go work there for a couple of weeks, and they were like, Matt, you've worked so hard. Um, please come out and you can come hang out in the boat and stuff. And that was just an incredible like sailing around the French Riviera. Again, I'd never been to France in my life, I'd never seen any of this. But um, one of the things is that the executive chef knew that I'd never been to a Michelin star restaurant, so he's like, Look, my old boss here is a guy called Jean-Louis at a place called Le Pandore in um in Cannes. Um, we're gonna go and see him, and I want you to see the restaurant, and I want you to experience what it's like to eat in the two Michelin Star restaurants. And yeah, I was just I was blown away. I was like, I I've never seen cooking at this level. You know, it was we did really good food at the time at So House. I was very proud of it. We used to change the menu every day. We were, you know, cutting edge of innovation at that time, and I was really proud to be part of that team to do that. And you know, the the level of people that were coming into our restaurant and the amount of press around our restaurant, and every day that I left there were paparazzi outside, you know, go waiting, going, oh no, it's just the fat Maori, you know. Just going home, yeah, you know. Um, and should have started getting the beatboxing out and see if they think at that time it would have been quite current as well. I think yeah, um, and um, yeah, so we we went to this restaurant and then the the chef came out, Jean-Louis, and you know, we met him, and I was like, oh my god, like this food has been incredible, it's changed my life, and you know, I this is where I want to go. This is what I would love to do one day. And he said, Well, why don't you have a stage? And a stage, in sort of chef terminology, um, for those of you that don't know out there, is to work in a place for free. So you fund it yourself, you get your own flat. Sometimes there's accommodation, like staff accommodation, where you know there's shared rooms and stuff, and you know, you can go and stay there for an amount of time to learn what the chef has to give you. And you'll start down the very low, you'll start by picking herbs and stuff, and then making your way up to different sections, pastry and meat and that, and you get to learn how to cook at that level. And so I was like, look, let me go back to London, I'll save up the money and then I'll come back and then I'll do it. And right at that moment, Nick Jones, the owner of So House, goes, I'll pay for you, Matt. And so from that moment, I was living in France. Um, so everyone went back, and um, I stayed in France for six months working with Jean-Louis at La Bande d'Or. Um, when you work within the world of Michelin, and I'm not sure it I think it's still pretty much the same, but anywhere from one star to two star to three star, you kind of all know each other, and all the restaurants are always in contact. It's really weird because you've got sort of like the one stars and they all kind of hang out together. And you've got the two stars as a very sort of cool, exclusive club, and then you've got the three stars, which no one talks to, you know, never take them out, you know, they're like enigmas, you know. We were in this like really cool two-star sort of place where I'm meeting all these incredible French chefs, and they're coming into our restaurant and I'm serving them, and you know, we're talking to them. I was the only Kiwi in the kitchen, I was the only English speaker in the kitchen, so I had to learn French like immediately, which um I I don't ask me to repeat anything because it's just disgusting that I've learned. It's just chef terminology, things like I want to tickle your asshole with my little finger, and whether the starter or the side. That was how I got into the kitchen. That's how popular. Um uh yeah, so obviously, you know, other two-star restaurants, they sort of notice you and they they say, Oh, you know, you're you're not bad. I, you know, I would love to um, you know, watch your career and maybe in the future you can come work for me. Now, one of those people was uh young Gordon Ramsay at the time, who had um Hospital Road. And he said, like, if you come back to the UK, like you know, look me up. I've got a few restaurants, and he did at the time, you know, he had some really hot places. So I came back and then I decided to go work with Jason Atherton at Mays. Um, and we opened Mays Grill, um, which was kind of like um uh his Michelin star uh steak restaurant, but it was also attached to Mays Restaurant, which was again one of the hottest restaurants in London at the time. Um it was just it was like being on um being on this really crazy stage of hospitality where you're in this open kitchen. So the kitchen was in a glass box, basically. So everyone could see in and you could all see out. So all the tables were around this glass box. So it felt like when you're eating in maize, you're eating in the kitchen. Yeah, so it was a really, really like crazy like process because one, you had to keep it immaculately clean, like we are getting the floor swept every three minutes. You had to wipe down everything, you had to keep your jacket clean. If you got one spot on it, you had to change it immediately. It was just it was such a high level of cookery that um I would say would far surpass the French at the time, and so I, you know, went from it's kind of like playing in Burnley, going to play for Manchester United. And you know, you're playing next to people like Ronaldo and like David Beckham and all these incredible players, and you uh having to get up to their level immediately, and uh that was just terrifying for me. Those first couple of months, you know, was so hard, so hard. I was doing 90 to 100 hours a week every so we were uh trading, we were trading six days a week. Um, on the Saturday, you would have to start at seven in the morning and you would finish, we'd finished service at 11, and then you deep clean, and you deep clean for four hours, and then you had your one day off, and then you're back into it again on the Monday. So on that one day off, you would sleep as much as you can, you would wash all your clothes from the week, you'll try and wash yourself, and then you'd go straight back into it, and you know that all those guys and girls became my family, and it was uh a really incredible place for me to work and really um put me in really good stead for kind of the rest of my career. So when I left there, um I was a little bit in limbo at the time. Um, and I've always uh I've always hated Jamie Oliver um until um he did school dinners. And when he did school dinners, one of the schools that he did it is was my son's school. Um at the time, my son was like six years old, and I had a real fucking thing against British schools because every time like my son would go, he'd be like, There's fucking chicken nuggets and turkey twizzlers and that. And me being a chef, and at the time, a fucking arrogant chef, was like, Why the fuck are you eating that? You should be eating like really good stuff, lots of vegetables and lots of fruit. And that's how I was brought up as a kid. So I'm just trying to force my son just to eat vegetables and stuff all the time. So what he was preaching, I understood and I could empathize with because I was like, Fuck, they are eating shit, you know. Well, I know most British kids now are going, fucking gilded turkey twister. And you know, I have a pension for turkey twisters myself. I didn't get this fat, fucking just like eating vegetables, my friends. Um, yeah, so that kind of changed my perception around him, and I was like, actually, um, I think a lot of this just came from jealousy, you know. I was jealous that this young kid um went through, you know, one of the best kitchens in the UK and then got the best opportunity in the world and made millions. And I think a lot of chefs were really jealous of him at the time because we're all slogging it out, and he's there like slapping salmon fillets, and there was his hot girlfriend sliding down banisters, and we were staying in a house full of 20 Polish guys who were drinking vodka, going, Fucking drink vodka for morning breakfast while he's like you know making a fucking bacon sani for his mates. Um anyway, I got an opportunity to uh potentially open a restaurant with him. Um, and we met up, and it's crazy how the first time that I met him because his diary is just madness. And so my meeting was in it was at quarter past six in the morning at a restaurant. So I had to be there, I had to do a cook-off for him. So I had to be there at like four to prep all the food. So he would come in and taste the food, and then we'll sit down and we'll have a chat about what we're gonna do. And he was the warmest and kindest and loveliest and really interested human that you know I'd ever met. And it really threw me off because like most chefs are quite egotistical, and you know, he wasn't, he was like approaching something from a very different angle. And I was like, I think I can work with this guy, he's like really, really good. So then we opened Thread Needle Street, which was one of his sort of like um, it was based on a Jamie's Italian, but it was kind of more of the fine dining and purely based around my skill set and the people who we brought on with us. So it was kind of like his testing ground for Jamie's Italian, but at the same time, it was also a more finer sort of side of Italian cookery, which was based in uh the city right in the heart of the city of London. And so I ran that place for three years, um, and that did really well, and that was crazy. Again, being on this weird chef pedestal working with, you know, one of the best chefs, you know, one of the greatest authors of our time, um, you know, and and it still freaks me out every now and then when I get a message from him, pop up. It's like, fuck, it's Jamie, Jesus, you know, it's still like, oh, but you know, he is amazing. Hey man, how you doing? Yeah, you good? How's things? How's life? You know, you got any chefs, or you know, we'll be talking about things or projects that he's doing, or you know, he's really into um charcoal at the moment, and uh we've been talking a lot about different charcoals and where they uh sort of come from, but that's I'm going a bit side on that one. So I finished working with him, and then um we get to two or no, sorry, so it was about 2010. No, sorry, 2012 actually. Um, he was releasing 15 minute meals, which was an iconic book for him, one of the biggest massive.

Dan 41:42

I had it because I've had it, I've still got it.

Grind, Standards, And 100-Hour Weeks

Rethinking Jamie Oliver And School Dinners

Opening Threadneedle Street With Jamie

Mat Blak 41:46

Yeah, still got it. Just so you know, it doesn't work, okay? Like book he's ever had. It's hilarious watching him talk about it. So funny what like everybody like he gives himself feedback on it. So brilliant, but anyway. Um, and you can imagine the guest list that's coming. So he's having the book launch at my restaurant, and I I'm I'm unslept. It's three days into it, and I'm just like, it's the day of you know, we've got Kevin Block, we've got Matt LeBlanc turning up, you've got um just like the plethora, like Jodie Kidd, you've got um Sienna Miller, that just like the the list was just daunting of people that are coming to this to this thing, and um, so we had sort of like a list of canopies from the book that we were doing, but as the guests arrived, we transformed the bar into a giant charcuterie platter. And I it took me about three hours to build this thing, and I just wanted to make it as beautiful as possible. Me and Jamie had been speaking about it, so I want we wanted people to walk in. The grandeur of the room was so beautiful, it had this huge chandelier right underneath it. We had this like giant, like five-meter charcuterie board just groaning with olives and hams and mortadella and pickles and just incredible thing. And I'm sitting there finishing up this thing, and this this annoying American walks up behind me and says, Oh my god, dude, that thing looks fucking amazing. And I'm just like, please don't talk to me. Like, I'm fucking just I'm like terrified, I'm scared, and I'm just I don't really know what I'm doing. And I just said, Yeah, I know that you know, thinking he goes, Oh man, how long did it take you to make that? And I was like, Oh, fucking hell. It was like, you know, a few hours, but I'm nearly there. Um, and I was like, Oh, so what are you doing here? He goes, Oh, I'm supposed to DJ. And I was like, Oh, okay, cool. And so I turned around and say, Oh, my name's Matt. And he's like, Hi, I'm Christian Stevenson. And so I was like, Oh, so what uh what are you doing here? And he goes, Oh, um, I DJ'd at his wife's birthday party, and his wife got me to come and DJ for this. And I was like, Okay, cool. Um He's like, I'm DJ Barbecue. I do catertainment and shit. And I was like, what a clown, man. Um, and I was sort of kind of obsessed with him because he like went, he walked off and walked out with this American spandex. And I was like, whoa, what's going on? And like, you know, you could see what he had for breakfast. And I was just like, actually, and then he started like DJing and playing the music and and and talking. And I was just like, actually, this guy's really good. He's playing music from my childhood. So things like CCR and like you know, Van Morrison, and like some old school funk. And I'm just like, actually, this guy's really cool, like, really cool. And so I we do the night, and it's just it's such a success. And me and him had been talking, saying how nervous we both were, and like, you know, let's get each other through it. And he's just like, I can't eat because I'm just I'm gonna vomit. I hadn't eaten for three days either. So, you know, I made us some nice sandwiches, and when he had a break from DJ, we jumped out the back of the restaurant, and you know, we had a sandwich together, and we're just having a chat. And Jamie came out as well, and Christian started talking to me. He was it and Jamie was talking about this concept that um he wants to do, and it's like he's like, Yeah, we're gonna do music and I'm gonna do barbecue and we're gonna like smoke pork and do all this type of stuff. I'll never forget looking at Jamie, going, Yeah, sure. Yep, good luck, mate. And Jamie's like, Yeah, this sounds like a fucking great idea. And I'm I'm smiling in my head. I'm just like, okay, like, you know, obviously the guy's never done anything like this before, you know. Um, and I was just like, you know, good good luck to you. And then he turned around to me and was like, Hey, uh, can I ask you some questions about it? Um, can we go out for a drink and and do it? And Jamie's like, yeah, go. Why don't you guys go out and like, you know, next week and meet up and have a chat about it? And I was like, okay, cool. And so a week later, I was out with Christian Stevenson and we're talking about this DJ barbecue concept. And he's like, Look, I've got a couple of events coming up. Um, why don't you come down and come come check it out? And you know, before I knew it, um, we had started DJ Barbecue. Um, we started doing like big festival and camp festival and all these like crazy festivals. Uh, we learned very quickly which were the drug ones where no one would eat and which ones were the family ones that everyone would eat. So we managed to sort of like move through all those festivals that you know, and go through those times to do that. And um, it was it was such an incredible time because my son was probably about 11 or 12 at the time, and he was obviously on the summer holidays coming with me. So it felt very much like a family affair. And Christian had his kids there as well, and you know, right now, like our kids, like Blue and Etienne, are just they're so close, they're like best mates, and they have been for many years. So we went through all of this for years while I was working for Jamie. So every weekend I would have it off, and then we would I would go to Grill stock and would cook for 4,000 people, and it would just be like utter madness. And you know, the first time that I saw his smoker was just like, oh my god, I had no idea what to do. And he was explaining to me reverse flow and how it works and shit. And I was like, right, I'm a chef. You put the fire in there, the smoke comes out there, and everything cooks inside. Yes, okay, that's all I need to know. Because I'm working commercially, I'm not working as like you know, a barbecuer to sit there and to work out how all these fundamentals work. But I did realize soon after that that it's really important that you know the fundamentals of how fire works for it to cook something in a particular way that you want it to turn out. So I became quite obsessed with that style of cooking and that style of like barbecue and that. And we were sort of traveling around the country, and Christian's introducing me to all these crazy people and you know, really big names, again in the genre, and and I'm getting to meet all these people, and then um I left Jamie's um and I left Jamie's to start up a pub with a um a couple of guys that I was going to go into business with, which um wasn't a great sort of thing to begin with. There was a lot of red flags there, and I shouldn't have shouldn't have done this. Um, and we got the pub pub open, and I was just like, I was absolutely done with the place. I was absolutely done with working with the guys. They were idiots, they were just not. We didn't have the same ethos when it came around, you know, the fundamentals of people and how to run kitchens and sort of things like this. So um I decided to leave. And yeah, guttingly, just like the day that I gave my um notice, we got a mention in the Michelin guide. And I couldn't believe it because it was all that work that went up to that. So I, you know, I was kind of really proud that I got it there. Not that we got a star, but that to even be mentioned by the Michelin guide, I was like absolutely blown away. Um, and then I I have some friends from New Zealand that um ran uh a couple of restaurants over here called Caravan, and it was based on a concept that I used to work in New Zealand uh called Cafe La Fare, where they had a coffee roaster inside the restaurant, and then they had the restaurant basically. So they were roasting fresh coffee all day, every day, and then serving it within the restaurant, and they had some wholesale customers that would uh come in and pick up bags of coffee and stuff, and it was more like a like a hobby more than what they were doing, and they were doing it in London and doing it really well. Um, you know, at the time you couldn't find a decent coffee in in London and in New Zealand, you know, we're very proud that we've been a very strong coffee drinking nation. So they created this brand based on we wanted a decent coffee in London, which was hilarious. And so we went out for a drink one night. Um, me and one of the owners, um, who's an old friend of mine from New Zealand, and he said, Look, I've watched your career since ever since you've been here. You know, you've been great. I'd love to have you on board to open our third restaurant. So I was like, Okay, yeah, cool. I'm I'm into it. And so after working for six months um with them, I was just doing training, um, we were aiming to open the restaurant towards the end of that year. They turned around and they said, Look, you know, what what you know and what you're bringing to the business is a lot more valuable outside of a kitchen rather than inside of a kitchen. So I would love to offer you a group role where you're overseeing all three kitchens. And so that was my sort of first foray into being an executive chef. So I did that, and we took the brand from two restaurants to nine restaurants, which was again an incredible journey of seven years. Um, and we're about to open up our 10th restaurant in Manchester, and you know, things were going really well, and I was about to get, well, I was just being married. Um, so you know, I flew out to New Zealand February 2020 for a for a month's wonderful, beautiful honeymoon. And I was there, and we were absolutely loving it, and it was so great. And came back to London, and I was like, I'm ready for this. I am absolutely going to kill it, and this is going to be the greatest year of my life. We're gonna open our 10th restaurant. There were lots of chats about pay rises and sort of things like this. And we got back, and within a week we were stuck inside. And my greatest advice to you guys is that if you ever get married, to test out your marriage, don't be locked in a house with a woman for six months. That really fucking tests you mean. Um, and you know, this is where sort of like my my life rapidly changed. Um, it was at the time I um had just been um I think I can talk about this, and I'm pretty sure that I can, but I was given um a big green egg um without the knowledge of big green egg knowing. Um now it was given to me from a friend who had recently started working there, but he kind of said to me, Don't worry, we're gonna work it out. Um, so I started cooking on this, and I started cooking at home and posting my sort of results and you know, a few viral videos went on TikTok. Um, and you know, things were going sort of kind of really well. And then lots of suppliers, my suppliers from Caravan were sending me things like half a goat and you know, big beef haunch, or a 10 kilo crab and just crazy stuff. And I was like, uh my god, what are you doing? And they were like, Well, I just want you to see if you can cook it on the barbecue and see what you do with it. And so I ended up having all this meat and stuff left over, so I I could only gift a certain amount to my either side of my neighbors. And so one of my neighbors going, Well, why don't you put it into the WhatsApp group and sell it? Like, at least you can just make a bit of money off it, you got it for free. So I did, and it just fucking flew. So I decided, like, oh, I'm gonna do this once a week because I think that it could just bring a bit of sunshine to everyone's life that's like caught at home, and it's one meal that the families don't have to cook, and I think it can be okay, and it's quite unique of what I do, and it was a good way to test out the food that I love to eat and that I did. So, much to my wife's delight, we went from doing 20 meals a week to 480.

Owen 53:24

I thought all on that big green egg.

A Party, A Platter, And Meeting DJ BBQ

Mat Blak 53:28

Uh, yeah. Wow, yeah, it was uh it was a nightmare, to be honest. Yeah, uh, we got six drivers. I turned my one-bedroom West London flat into a commercial kitchen. Um, my wife was so happy with me, so happy. Um, she was working full-time at the time, so she's just like, What the fuck are you doing? Getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and you know, I had to employ more chefs, more people, more drivers. Um, and after a year, we took on a commercial space, so I got like a proper big kitchen. I shared a space with a couple of other restaurants that were doing similar things as me. Um, and we just kept on getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and then all the restaurants reopened, and literally overnight that business just died. Like nobody was getting boxes anymore, nobody was getting everything, but that was okay. Like, you know, I hadn't invested any money in it. Yeah, it washing its own face, and all as I was doing was making pure profit, you know. Yeah, uh, make sure this doesn't go out to the tax man, please. Yeah, yeah. Pay tax, hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm not Jimmy Carr, I pay tax. Um, no, I didn't. Anyway, um, so that like sort of exploded during that time, and I was just like, oh my god, this is like absolutely amazing. We went back into the restaurants, and I was so happy to be back there, but everything had changed. Like, we had stopped from deciding to open the restaurant. We were just trying to survive, we're just trying to get people to come in, we're trying to recoup the money. Caravan did something which was just really amazing, and they borrowed a lot of money, like about a million pounds, to pay the staff during the whole of COVID, so we didn't lose anybody. And that I was really proud of them for doing that. They're really good people, and it's like you hear horror stories of like these companies that just made everyone redundant, and they were just like, you know, living off furlough, and like Caravan didn't. They were like, We're gonna pay you full wages. They paid me full wages throughout the whole time, and you know, it's a really amazing thing to do. And then, you know, the the message came through one day that every sort of uh son, daughter, you know, human H to C. And I had got a message from a friend of mine in New Zealand saying that um your mom's in hospital, and um sadly she had had a heart attack. Um, and you know, she was put into end-of-life care, and so I had to go home. And um, my New Zealand was on lockdown, so nobody could come in, nobody could go out. So I had to spend 11 days begging the government to allow me to come home. And, you know, much to my delight and surprise that it came straight from the prime minister that she's like, get him home, you know. Um, and they did, they got a plane for me. I flew from Singapore to New Zealand. There was me and one other on a 737, and it was the greatest flight of my life. We got to sit anywhere where we wanted, it was just amazing. I've never been in first class before, but they didn't have any service because they had no body on there, you know. You couldn't go into the cockpit or anything, you could just walk around the plane and ended up chatting to this guy, and then we'll put straight into quarantine. But sadly, mum passed away. Uh, I got to see her before um uh before she did, and you know, um that was really hard. But then when I came back to London, life had changed, myself had changed. I think my priorities changed, and I decided that I had lived years in servitude to my industry, to hospitality, and I love it. I am so passionate about it. But then I just kind of like thought, well, I I wouldn't I'll do my mother a disservice if I didn't continue to be better and get better and do more things that made me happy rather than making other people happy. So yeah, 2022, I left Caravan um and I started out my own food consultancy doing menu development and design. Um at that time I'd been playing around with sources that I've been upselling during COVID and um decided to launch those. You know, I started writing a book, um, which I'm still sort of going through, which you're hearing sort of like the pretense of the book. There's so much more in that, um, but a lot of stuff obviously that will have to remain in the book. But um yeah, which kind of just leads me to to now, really. So it's just crazy. So, you know, what what am I doing now? I'm I'm sort of a live fire enthusiast. I love going around to demos, doing demos at festivals, and I'm really into supper clubs at the moment. So I've got like about 19 supper clubs booked this year, which I'm really stoked about. Some massive festivals around uh around the UK, um, a lot around the UK. I'm gonna be cooking in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and you know, down in Cornwall, and a couple in London, and some up north as well, with those guys doing block um block grills. I'm going up there to cook with them. Um, and yeah, I'm just living a really good life at the moment, and and I'm just really happy. And uh, you know, seven years sober now. Um, I miss it. I miss drugs and I miss drinking. Um, you know, because there's no good story without drugs or drink. But, you know, at the same time, it also makes me happy with where I'm at.

Part One Wrap And Listener CTA

Owen 59:02

That's it for another episode of the Meet and Greet Barbecue Podcast. What a truly inspirational story from Matt. Uh, this is only just the end of part one of a two-part episode. Um, so please do tune in uh in two weeks' time when this is released. Um, as ever, we want to hear from you. We want to understand what you want to talk about, so please do get involved. Contact us on socials, tell us what you want us to talk about, and until next time, keep on grilling.

Dan 59:39

Today's episode of the Meet and Greek Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.