Cutting Close: Getting to know Tom Kerridge EP.5

This week on Cutting Close, Josh Hughes and Caolan Carney-Slee are joined by chef, author and TV personality Tom Kerridge. From running Michelin-starred restaurants to working alongside Marcus Rashford, helping tackle food poverty across the UK, Tom’s built a career that goes far beyond the kitchen.

In this episode, the boys sit down with Tom for a proper honest conversation about the pressure of working in the food industry, the reality of addiction, mental health, and how intense kitchen culture can affect people behind the scenes. But as always with Cutting Close, it’s not all serious — there’s plenty of laughs throughout, stories from the industry, and the usual chaos from Josh and Caolan trying to hold it together.

Tom opens up about where his love for cooking started, the challenges he’s faced throughout his career, and what’s inspired him to keep pushing forward. The conversation also touches on the importance of helping others, creating opportunities through food, and using your platform to make a real difference.

It’s a funny, honest and genuinely inspiring episode with one of the biggest names in British cooking, and we’re buzzing for you to hear it.

Let us know your favourite part of the episode and what questions you would’ve asked Tom.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3UeWfKPanOEfoAW49NPBAc
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cutting-close-podcast/id1890005982

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cuttingclosepodcast/
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@UCZbTQiu9ZsjvwPauc3_ZISw

Follow the hosts:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetourettesbarber/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pnky_barber/

Follow Tom:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheftomkerridge/

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UCZbTQiu9ZsjvwPauc3_ZISw 

📩 Contact: cuttingclosepod@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

First appeared on Great British Menu uh like sixteen years ago. Only Pan's account. It was it was I haven't got one of those. I pay good money. Boris.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Let me cut that prick's hair.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

No, no. It won't do it. And I'll cook him a meal. Yeah, we'll probably fuck him up. Welcome back to Cutting Close. It's me, Josh Hughes, aka the Tourette's barber. And me, Queelon, the special Irish fella. This is Cut and Close, where we have real conversations, interesting guests. And we take nothing too seriously, and every conversation hits a little fucking close. Right. Let's get into it. Let's do it. Yao! And if you want to support us on this pod, please like and subscribe wherever you're watching this. It fucking goes a long way for us, and we're already trying. God loves a try. So today on the show, we're really excited to have a fucking fucking legend. Absolute legend. TV chef, two Michelin Star restaurant, started himself. First pub in the UK to do that. Best selling offer. It's Tom Kerrige everyone. It's Tom Kerrige everyone. Here he is. Thank you for coming on, Tom. Very challenging. Honestly, pleasure. Foot wits. Pleasure. Sorry. That was not as clean as I wanted it, but that'll be it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

It's the best intro I've ever had. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so glad you're wearing a hat. Um to be honest, I've been here 20 minutes and me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

You might get pulled off at some stage, I'd say.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

We're already sweating. We're already sweating. I think even how what it's not because obviously I think a lot of people will be asking us, fuck, like, how did this happen? How did we get together? Have you followed me for a little while knowingly?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, yeah. I've I've followed you probably, I don't know, about a year, maybe over a year, a year and a half. Yeah, maybe two years.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

I do remember seeing you pop up. Yeah, you've got me popping, yeah, popping bottles in the club. Um, I remember you coming through and I I was I was touched, and I just and it's that happened quite a few times for me, like blow it, like coming up on the socials and someone like yourself, especially verified. I mean, who gives a fuck about that? But it is still kind of great to see, and obviously I've followed your story and obviously seen you on screens for a long time now, but just it is it's heartwarming to know for me, like online, seeing people follow your story. How does that make you feel knowing people that follow along in your career and your life now?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, it's pretty it is pretty cool when you you come across people that come to the restaurants and then speak to us from I don't know whether they came to the pub when we first opened it. So the hand of flowers is 21 years old.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Or from when they saw us from Great British Menu, been on Astor and watched things on the telly and come along with us. So it is, I mean, you're the same age as me when I opened The Hand of Flowers. So, like, you know, you are I mean, you're further ahead of us on that journey. You've got people, you've got followers, you've got podcasts, you've got a business that you're running. How long have you been opening?

SPEAKER_03 2:50

This two years, but I started my first barber shop six years ago, so I would have been 25.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, so I mean it's a young age to start building that business and growing. And it's really good that people will see you and go on that journey. And I think because of the way that your socials work and what you are, when you run a business or you've been in that position and you know what it's like as a young, you know, a young person having a go at running a business, having you want to try and support it as much as possible. And you know, you you come across the way that you talk and the way that you you you operate, you do come across as something that's talented, business-wise, structured, but also it's it's an interesting watch. You have there is a different thing to watch, you know, it makes it engaging, and that's really, really uh I think it makes it personal for everybody to understand to go on that journey. So to know that people have done the same for us, I mean, it's pretty mega. Yeah, but we did it before I almost before the internet was up by the way. Do you know what I mean? I mean I was there before the gram existed.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Well, since you've had that register, that's a great question, actually, because I think some yeah, sorry, please you answer that question.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah. Well, I think I was very lucky because we did Great British Menu and we did well on it. You know, the fact that but that's when I think television and there was not quite as many people watching YouTube, not as many people getting there, you know. You you you're you know, the way that people watch TV now is very, very different. When I first appeared on Great British Menu um like 16 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Only Pan's account. It was it was oh no, I haven't got one of those, but when it was I pay good money. So it's a little bit innate.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

16 years ago, you go, uh people would watch television at a particular time, and people go on so it was a slightly different, and then but it would be millions at once. Great British menu would have two or three peop million people just watching it, and you go so it so it hits the same sort of way. Now there's so many different multimedia access when everyone might get it.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

I think also people come up in different ways now because I think you would have had I suppose that TV style where obviously you got on TV initially, but then I suppose so many people now come up through social and almost like skip. I suppose it's not now, but they do almost skip processes that maybe your generation had to go through to get to that point.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, they maybe a little bit. And then there's also that point. See, I consider myself very lucky. I think I look at my television career and the media way and the way that it's grown. I'm pretty much one of the last chefs that ever got a gig on tele that that chefs that have come through that then have got their own TV stuff with it in that in that old school traditional way of going BBC one, BBC Two, Channel 4, ITV, whatever it is, and then a cookery book and a whatever.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Just all grooming.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Loads more people know the way that the media works, it isn't just that they're not uh commissioning new faces on television. What they're doing is they're playing with the old versions of it and people that they know and just seeing. So I'm probably yeah, one of the last ones.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Yeah, well, all you need is TikTok and Instagram to blow up, and that's the same thing these days, isn't it? So it's obviously you put a lot of work in before this all happened, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

And so it's but that's what makes it exciting. But that's what also makes you when you see your stories, the way that it's working and the way that you're moving forward, because there is so much more opportunity and noise out there from things like this where people can get a conversation and get it out there and seen that to actually break through, yeah. There's so much more people you're trying to break through into.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Definitely, and I suppose it depends on which way you look at it. Yeah, there is a lot more opportunity, but there's a lot more people doing it. Yeah, yeah. As well, that's that's another thing as well. Like, we what did we hear the other week? How much how much is posted on YouTube?

SPEAKER_02 6:13

4.8 million minutes a day or so. It was like stupid hours.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

It was like you couldn't comprehend that. Well, and not doesn't fucking matter, it's just a fact that I find mental. It's hard to get seen and it attracts to get seen. Every day that's how much gets uploaded. So to actually stand out, even for fuck even for us in this situation now, trying to put this out on YouTube, I'm not saying it doesn't do well. We're really trying to push and work on it. But just because I've got two million followers on a couple of different accounts doesn't mean that this is absolutely gonna work. No, no, but this is why we got fuck off Tom and Mum. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

It's a birthday today, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 6:46

It's a birthday carriage. Isn't that nice, isn't it? Well, we're gonna go out for a cut tea and cake. Is it pie and cake in your neck of the woods?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah, well, I don't know. She's down in Globcester, she'd have washing to do tonight. She's going out for a all you can eat cavalry, I think, with me forever. That's the best way to do that, it's not really.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Love that shit. Toby, is it? I think it might be, you know. Well, you can't fucking fix it if you ain't broke. 100% back off with you.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I was gonna say, I've seen you do have a couple of flaws online, uh, being a Man United fan. Yeah, I am a man, and I'm a Middlesbrough fan. Oh, you're a Middlesbrough fan? So you've got the old boy in charge now. Do you carry in or out?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I he's in, yeah. Well, he's in now two years, isn't it? A job two years old back and forth. Yeah, yeah. I don't think they're left with any choice, were they? I think if you I I mean, I'm not uh you know, I'm not basically uh an expert on football, but I think if you're looking at it and you're going, if they give it to somebody else and they get they lose the first two or three games of the season, everyone's going, you should have given it to Carrick. So I you know, I just think they've gone and a two-year contract is he's done a great job, you know, he's done a great fair play to him, he's done good.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

But I was thinking I didn't actually realise you did a lot of work with Marcus, was it Marcus Rashford for the full-time menu? He did, yeah. So full-time was a good thing to do, innit, at the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

So that was another thing that comes from socials where a lot of people will talk about socials being bad or uh or but sometimes they can be used for so much good. Yeah. So Marcus's voice and noise was being used for um for kids in free school meals and uh and pushing that forward, you know, and and absolutely that campaigning that pushed on government was brilliant. And then we and me and Marcus hooked up together and started to talk about how we can uh um there's a something called a healthy start scheme, which is about giving people money to try and get them to encourage if you if you are on universal credit, it allows you to buy certain different things from shops. Yeah, and then it was a cut, right? And we put together 52 recipes, one a week, of low uh cost, budget-friendly, super tasty meals that would appeal to everybody. So that's where the socials came in. It was really good. So myself and Marcus put that, and it was a great, great thing to do.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

And that's where well I think the the main part, the heart of the issue is I think people don't realize I think in different places in the country, so many people wouldn't be touched by that, but then I don't think they realise it's happening.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah, I've been more now more than ever, really. Yeah, food poverty, child food poverty is is a massive thing. I mean, I mean, child food poverty exists because poverty exists, and that that's the biggest issue of trying to trying to equal everything out and trying to make it right and trying to and it and you know that's not our job as chefs or barbers to be able to solve it. No, but but you can use try and push for the right things in the right direction for the right people to be listened to, I think.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

I I can't I couldn't agree more, but I I I think fuck like like you just said that actually as chefs and barbers we can't do it, but I think actually, in a weird way, we actually deal with the same thing where we're seeing people on a day-to-day basis, like in our barber shop, we talk to people in different backgrounds all the time. And I think in our little world of in our little barbershop, that people share stuff with us that they wouldn't necessarily share with their friends or whatever, and yeah, the cheap therapy thing as barbers is obviously a massive thing, but it's beautiful because they can they only tell us what they want us to know, but that's all we know from them. I don't know them outside of this these four walls, yeah. And I kind of feel like it's kind of similar when someone's in your restaurant. I know you're not talking to them as closely as we would because we're literally right behind their heads and banging them up the arse. Only on the weekends in late night services. I do charge extra for that. That's the um yeah, Tom, if you're interested. Anyway. Um but going back to the serious man, it's just that little insight into people's lives that is the beautiful part of what we see, you know?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, I do think when you have that opportunity when you're talking with people and they can let you know, and it is interesting to think that you you hear so much more now people talking about money, poverty, how they can't afford to do things in their their their daily lives. People are still getting haircuts, people are still coming for something to eat, but actually that daily process of how the lives are affecting them. And although we have a two-minute star space that is seen as top end and is super expensive and all of those sort of things, we do have uh we've got a a pub down the road that it's burgers and chips and football on the telly and beer. I like it. And actually, throughout most of uh post-COVID, just up until the last year, the last four years, we did kids eat free in the afternoon, and we didn't really advertise it, but there was there were certain people that would come three times a week because they couldn't afford, and nobody says anything, and you just feed them a kids eat free, and it was just and it's just one of those things that even in a community like Marlowe, which is seen as this it is a beautiful Thames, riverside, you know, middle. It's an affluent area, and you just go, okay, but actually, around the outsides, and around poverty exists pretty much everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah, of course, and I think that you know, again, Queeland being Irish, you see it, and it's different side like you grow up in Ireland, obviously, and I grew up in just outside North London. We see the same things. I've lived in a relatively affluent area, but then our way I went to school was shocking. Yeah. Like, and I I don't even I feel bad saying it like this. I had a I didn't know until I went to secondary school that I lived in a big house. Went to secondary school, became friends with people around me who they might have two, three siblings with a single mum and live in a two-bedroom flat. I never looked at it in that way like, oh, you're less than me at all. It was never like that. But you it made me appreciate that quite early on. And again, living in a big house in an affluent area, you don't I think unless you don't mix, you don't see it. But you what you just said then, surrounding areas, it's not that they need that support just as much.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Those sort of things are really important. So I grew up in the middle of three estates in Gloucester. It's funny, I was back there yesterday um and went to see uh to my son, who's grown up very differently to me, to the flat where my mum and dad's split out my dad where my dad lived. And you just went, and he's my my son's grown up in Marlowe in a nice big house on the river, like completely different. But we make sure he goes to a normal state school where he has to mix and he has to understand because he's privileged enough as it is. His his mum's an artist, his dad's a chef, he's surrounded by great food, he does really cool things, you know. Actually, the real is the realisation that most people's lives are very, very different. It's so important for them to be able to understand that that uh um everybody else's life, everybody has lots of different struggles and things. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

The normal the normality of it is not like a but I think it's also making sure that he's grateful of what he does have when you can see what others don't.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah, that the the well, those are life lessons that as parents you've got to try and teach them, isn't it? Like that's the hardest thing, I mean make sure you're on the right side of it.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Someone's got some money.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

It's always I did want to say though as well, with the two Michelin star plays, how hard is it? Is it yearly you get judged on keeping the stars?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, so the mission guide comes out every year, and it comes out normally at the beginning of the year, end of January, beginning of February, and you never know when they've come in, they never announce, they can't, they disappear, and you only know if you've managed to maintain it. Uh if you know you go to the awards due, hopefully you get the invite. If you get the invite, you think, okay, they're not gonna invite me and then tell me oh blah. So you go there and you hope, and and and you so you only find out pretty much on though that awards due. Also, people if they're winning stars, or if people are going from one to two stars or two to three stars, they only find out on that night, which um god the pressure of that. It is gonna say but it's great. I mean, that means that every guest, particularly Hannah Flowers, that's open seven days a week. You every single guest could be possibly inspected. Which means but every single guest is super important, which drives consistently.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

In a in a simple way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

It's the same as you. If you you've got to cut everybody else's, everybody's hair, the same level, the same quality every single time. Otherwise, they're never gonna come back. It's about driving business fundamentally. And the Michelin guide is actually written for the guests, it's not written for chefs. You know, the guest buys the book to go, I'd like to eat there, there, and there, because that's a level that I'd like to.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Well, I even love the history of Michelin because it did start as it was tires, and that obviously the Michelin, well, obviously, people know it's tires, but like wasn't the story goes that it was actually about where to stop on your route around the country.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, well, from north to south of France, there's a main motorway that we're down, and it was to encourage people to drive more. So the more you drive and you visit these restaurants, the more actual rubber you're using on your tyres, which means that so that was the whole point of it. It's a marketing tool to get you out driving. So then actually, as they went through, they went, Well, this is this is actually very good. That we'll give that a star, one to three star. So it's developed from there. So it was originally a marketing tool, and I suppose it still is. You know, people will associate uh, I mean, but the the way that motorsport or cars associates with the Michelin guide are two, they are two very, very different things, but that's how it started.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Yeah, that's the only good thing to come out of France. Yeah, so I love the French, I love their roads actually as well. Have you driven in France much? Isn't it lovely?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

I do a road trip every year with four other chefs, five other chefs, like four other two or three men's. Gino chefs. No, Gino doesn't want it.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Have some of that. He's from fucking Sheffield. Why do you say he's in Sheffield? Yeah, like it's a fake accent.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Just catching shots.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Ironically, he's in hot water.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Um Gino doesn't come on the trip, no. But there are so Claire Smith, who's a three mystery star, global chef, Sat Bain's two stars, Claude is two stars, Daniel Clifford is two stars, and we go on a road trip for four or five days through France.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

So it's a nine-star car walking around.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, well, yeah, we each have our own car with our radios in, a bit like a top gear thing. It's like a top gear special. It's a great crowd, and then we go and eat dinner every night at a two or three mystery star restaurant, and it's mega. We drive four or five hundred miles in a day, and we go and out of dinner somewhere, and it's brilliant. It's an mega trip.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

It sounds like a TV show.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, actually, we like to do it and not be filmed. Yeah, I can imagine. Because you're a thing there now. Yeah, because it's it's the one escape, and it's actually all we do is just talk about food in the industry and about what's going on and how exciting it is, and you could become inspired by it, like as opposed to worrying about whether the mic's on or the cameras. Yeah, you can just go and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Is that where you actually find amused then?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

That kind of is that exactly that, yeah. And you get, you know, you could sit there with other chefs talking about other things, and you haven't got to worry about anything else, like family life, work life, anything. You can just sit there, talk about that food, that dish, inspired by that person, and it and it's a real it's a proper chef's getaway.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

So yeah, it's a really lovely trip. Because that's the thing, is I think even in our industry, like there's big Barber shows all over, and I've we've been to loads of shows, and I think actually sometimes as great as the shows are, and I'm not putting the shows down with any or food shows, whatever. But sometimes you're like, God, I do that at work. I don't need to go and do that on the weekend as well. Yeah, but you do need to sometimes go there to be inspiring, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, you know, but a lot of it does become work. I mean, we briefly touched on it before the cycle recording, but it it's so much of what you do or what I do, something becomes it goes from being the business that you run, it's kind of hair on a daily basis. Yeah, the business that I run is I've got five restaurants that are all trying to operate and make money and try and exist and you know and work well so that everyone can get paid and everyone get all of those that they have to exist like that. But all the other bits that you have to do, which you quite enjoy doing, you know, the setup of the thing is quite exciting, but the more you do it, the more it is work, and it it is a job, and it is but it does become part part.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

People see the fruit, but not the labour, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is it. And I really don't the more I'm the older I'm getting, the more I'm realising. I think even you see that now, Queenong, as well, because I think again, working together, you fucking laughing at, right? Yes, Cryon is slightly younger than me. Just about it. Not that he looks at he looks it. Tom's the youngest one is. Um, but yeah, no, I just I'm trying to say it in a sense of like, I often people often think that I'm fucking minted because I've got two shops and we are doing quite well, but it doesn't work like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Um, two shops is twice the cost.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Of course it is, and it's the overhead that's not that right. I'm not saying that we're not, but you have to sacrifice at first. Again, I'm only six years into my business. Yeah, but I'm not paying myself loads because the business is doing okay, because I've got to keep it in the fucking business to pay all the staff and and keep the lights on.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, well, even more in your own. Most people in my businesses earn more money, they all earn more money than me. I pay myself a very small amount. My actually, my revenue, my income comes from all the other stuff, yeah. Because at the minute the business is just having to operate and stay so my income comes from everywhere else. The businesses are just about making money, everyone's getting paid, you know, and they all get paid a proper salary. Whereas, but I yeah, I take very little out of the business. But that's what you gotta do with business owners.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

You just have to Aldi's looking for a little bit more airtime, please. MS, a bit more, yeah, not just the butter. Can I be honest? The way you eating that butter is quite sexual. Do you like that? Yes, I do like that because you're only pants content in coming in. Yeah, only pants, only pants. I mean, that's got to be something. Yeah, because you put it on thick at all, right? Oh, yeah, it's proper. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Well, I I like to think of butter, good butter like that. It's like cheese. Like you you don't have a thin proper bit.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

He said that in the advert. You did, you did. I only watched it. I didn't even. You said you have to have it thick like cheese. Oh, there you go, then. David Seaman. Jesus Christ. Sorry. Sorry. I'm I'm not even embarrassed about it, but just I just know that it's uh come.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Well, is there a sorry, I'm trying to take myself back to where I should be. A moment then when you first started Chef and where you realised you want was Mitch and Star's ever name, or is that just something that happened down the line?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, not well, sort of, yes and no. I'd always worked in really good restaurants. So I worked in nice places in my first job, actually, was in a Mission Star hotel in the West Country. So I grew up in Gloucester and I worked in this country house hotel that had a Mission Star. And so straight away you saw the standards and the levels of the spaces of what people should be cooking at and um an understanding of professionalism uh that was great. I didn't ever think that I'd ever cook one for myself, like I was a little kid. From an estate in Gloucester, and you go, okay, well, I learned to cook and I do quite well, and then I moved up into London in my early 20s, 2081, and you start going, okay, well, into those kitchens, and then when the opportunities come in later life to to to have a go at being a head chef in a mission-style space, or you know, I that's where you thought, okay, maybe I could do this. I have got the levels, I have got the standards. But it was also about, I mean, I was so lucky that as an 18-year-old, I found an industry that I absolutely loved. You walk into a kitchen, it's exciting, it's buzzy, it's fun. Do you enjoy the stress of it all? Oh, yeah, but it's not just that, is it's the the the downtime of it. That the it's it's full of naughty people just you know getting drunk and having a great time after work and partying and staff houses and being, and I loved all of that, and it was mega, and it's a great industry to be in. And people talk about the social life being rubbish in hospitality. It's not it could be the opposite, it's the opposite. It it is the best, especially. Because you know, you know the bars, you know the people, you know the you know, you go everywhere and you get it and it's great, it's mega, it's it's like any job though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Where you work with the people all the time, and actually, this is something we're gonna touch on because we both worked in kitchens when we were young, and again, like a lot of people do, probably try a pub job. Fuck, fuck, fuck Ollie, the chef. Anyway, um God's gonna say his name then. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say his name. I used to I I worked in a pub that was uh a country pub, but really it was a restaurant, yeah, and the chef was the owner, yeah, and head chef he was in the kitchen. Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ was that pressure to work under him. Yeah. He lived upstairs, drunk it, drunk, drunk way too much. Yeah. Right. And I don't care, I turned into his face and his face shows it, if I'm honest, as well. Because I think we wanna I wanted to touch on that. That one, I think the industry is tough to work in. Uh even in our small even in our small jobs we did, right? You felt the same. It's like the stress of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

I wanted to be a chef when I was a teenager until I started working in kitchens. I think I don't have the mentality for that. I did love it at the time. But stress and like obviously it's different if you have the passion as well for it. But mine was snapped out of me quite quick. I was like, though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

You've got to enjoy the adrenaline buzz of it. You've got to enjoy the um the excitement of it, the good uh not just the creativity, because it's not just about the cooking, it's about the energy, the atmosphere, what goes on. You'll find in kitchens there's so many people that are neurodivergent, whether it's m autism, whether it's ADHD, whether something that is like because they can click into that, because an ADHD brain in the kitchen where everybody else will go into it and go, oh, this is quite it's feels really chaotic and noisy and whatever. But you you you can control, you understand what's going on, and you find calmness in the noise in the and and you can find a path through it all. So you have to be able to enjoy those environments and that buzz that you get if you think you've got two sessions, lunch and dinner, yeah, that you've got to be ready for that adrenaline fuel, and then there's the come down afterwards, whilst everyone, whilst you're being pushed by a head chef that's saying, hurry up, hurry up, George, get that done. You're like, oh my god, like by the end of it, you then go, you then you need to go, okay, I need a beer now or something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can't peel any more spuds, like just can't.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

That's all I do, yeah. That's what you don't do. He does that anyway. That's the Irish beer. Fucking potatoes, yeah. But it's true, though. But do you going back on the neurodivergence side there? Because obviously that's something we really want to promote on here as well. Obviously, I'm fucked in the head with Tourette's and and FND, and I'm dyslexic, and probably I've never been diagnosed about HD, but for anyone that does know me, it's definitely a big part of my life, and you're definitely autistic and spastic. But Dodges, no, you've definitely got some of the tisms as well. This is why one up, I think we get on because sometimes we're not always in the right headspace each other, but we do understand when we're not and we are. When to leave us. Yeah. Yeah, when to like actually that's and that's a big thing about friendships. So I think you need to understand that. But my question was within the the the not the barber, in the like the cook chefing and even the industry in general, is it fit uh fit for neurodivergence in there as well?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Like oh my god, it's the it's the best space because kitchens are also so um eclective and embracing, and it doesn't matter on race, religion, sexuality, it doesn't matter on education, economic background. You come in there to work hard, you enjoy food, and you want to get a be a part of something. If you're willing to work hard and do stuff and be a part of a team, then it is the most embracing. Is it one of the most exciting and brilliant industries to be in that is super I I think um uh culturally rich, but it it is full of people that don't necessarily fit and tick a box that would work in an office, you know, people that those office spaces, play people places where people sit still in front of a screen. Yeah, it is you know it's actually you know, there's a lot of people whose lives don't fit that. But actually, kitchens, coffee shops, those sort of space. I reckon now more than ever we've seen your hands, they they all fit.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

And kitchens are full of those sort of people that don't always misfits sometimes, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I mean, this is these are the people that don't always fit into everyday style of.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

From the head chef to the KP, I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

All the way down where they all get on, and whether after work they'll all get out, yeah, they'll all go out on the pits, they'll all go out really late at night, they'll all do everyone's included then. And they're there are the sort of people that quite often sometimes can lead to the darker side, they can lead to they can lead to um issues regarding addiction issues, whether it whether it's through alcohol or drugs, it does lead to sleeping issues, it leads to problems at mixing with in normal society in a way that conforming that everybody else does.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

It's not just night work, is it like knife shifts, that is a complete you almost become nocturnal, yeah. But you're doing the unsociable hours.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah, but you're also doing work that a lot of people will find absolutely terrifying that they don't want to be a part of. So it is, it's full of quite often misfits, but in a really nice way. I described. I don't mean that badly, I know what you're saying. I describe it like a pirate ship. If you think like a pirate ship, it's full of all these like different walks of society, loads of naughty people. Yeah, exactly. All put on a boat, but that boat works efficiently, it does it really well, and actually it robs loads of stuff and it doesn't. It's just full of like lunatics, and that's kind of like the the the the kitchens that in many, many, in many restaurants.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yes, if you had any advice then for say someone who was neurodivergent who didn't know how to get into Chevin, what would be the best way for someone to go about entering into that then?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Eat eat somewhere that you think you might want to eat and you you might want to learn how to do it, knock on the back door, because everybody is everybody needs chefs, and even if they don't need chefs and they're fully staffed, someone knocking on the door and going, Yeah, I've got a CV, can I come and work a shift for you on a Friday or a Saturday night for nothing? And it straight away you're like, Well, this person's shows something. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, of course you can. Come on in, come on in, come on in. And before you know it, we had um uh a young chef when we first started a guy called Ollie who turned up, he used to be working at um wait rows, probing the sausages in the cafe to make sure that they got to 85 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I've seen those weirdos. And he turned poor old Ollie.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Probably the sausages. I mean, you're fucking lining me up, so I'll probe your sausage.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Sorry, but no, you're fine, mate. You're absolutely fine. He turned up on uh Friday night to do a little shit. He he he said, Can I come and do a night for nothing? And we were like, Yeah, yeah, come in. Come in and did a night for nothing. Loved it. He had to be back at work the next day. He turned back up on the Saturday morning. I was like, What are you doing back? You're supposed to be at John Lucy's. I go, I'm not going in today. I just thought I'd come back here. I said, Well, okay, but uh what's back working? I just want to do the day here. I was like, okay. Then he came back Monday and I was like, Yeah, but you can't. He goes, Yeah, but I want to work here. I go, Yeah, but we won't go any jobs for you. Then he came back again Tuesday, Wednesday, by Friday, I went, Oh, fuck it, I may as well just pay and then you're here. And then he stayed with us for over 10 years. Yeah, in like being super. It's amazing, and just because he wanted to do it, so anybody who wants to get in it, go find the space, work there, and you just do it with the city.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

And it sounds like that would work again, work in any industry. Because I think nowadays you're seeing again, we've had a we've actually looked for a bit of staff at a coffee shop next door, and I hate to say it, but if a mum comes in asking, asking on the behalf of a young person, you're like, you're already like, well, if you can't ask to give your CV and it's probably not gonna work out because you can't present yourself. And I think we've seen it even in Barbering. I've got a guy who's been with me two months, he just turned up and said, I want to fucking do this, and he hadn't even been to college yet.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

And we talked about going to college and he's really smashing it, Jim. Like he's really doing really, and all of our barbers do well, but Jim, because he was a client.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

And like a bit like you said then go into a restaurant, eat something, if you like it, then go back and go around and back on the door. It's exactly what he did in here. He was a client, and he won't mind me saying he's dealt with addiction, he was very upfront with that as well. And I think that made me realise actually that fuck, because he's had his addictions, I'm like, do you know what? That's absolutely fine. As long as I'm aware and we can work that out together. He doesn't really need my help, but it's just as long as I know, and if you ever need my support, but again, it kind of brings me on to another question is like, well, you understand you now don't drink. Yeah, was that was that an executive decision? Oh, yeah, no, I was that addiction or was that because yeah, big issue, big alcohol problem.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So I was drinking, I don't know, 12, 14 pints of strong lager every night and half a bottle of gin, probably. Something like that. And like that was like that was like a standard, that was a standard day. It was like every day, every single day. But it's funny because I look at it and yeah, it's an addiction issue and it's a problem, and I can't, I can't even have I won't have zero alcohol beer. I won't I did it once where I drank one bottle of like a Bex Blue, would have been about eight years ago.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah, that's that's what we spoke about. I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

I just had a bottle of Bex Blue, and that was it. I drank eight of them in 20 minutes. I was on it again, and it was not even, it was just the sensory the thing. Like the the little steaming in there. It just wakes up and it just it just becomes you like, so I can't, I I haven't drunk now for nearly it'll be 13 years this year. And then you just go, well, that's congratulations, by the way. That's fucking incredible. Honestly, it's not something you just go, it's just a thing that you've had to go with a and I don't I sometimes I think oh, I wish I could have something, but I don't I don't miss it at all. Yeah, and I actually I don't regret it for a minute because without that drive to get to two stars and that business, which was massive, where you were working 18-hour days, seven days a week, that release in between that gap of six hours where I drink that amount, go to bed and get up and do it again. If I didn't have that release, I wouldn't have had that drive. And without that drive, you wouldn't have been able to take the business. No, I'm not saying that that's how to make your business work and that's how you do it. But it worked for me, right? That was my escape route, that was my thing. And then it got to the point where I went, I have to change, I've got to do it. I was coming, I was approaching my 40th birthday, and I went, that's it, I'm done. I have to stop. Otherwise, otherwise I'm gonna die. Like it. So then I and then I stopped.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Is that what did you find a new vice? Like, was that with the when the weight loss area, all that kind of stuff? Or did you trigger anything to yeah?

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Kind of I go to the gym a lot now. So I I I started off by swimming. So I swam, I got to the point where I was swimming um like uh a mile a day and do that, yeah. And I was trying, and I was doing uh no uh front crawl, so I was uh and I went He looks like a breast man.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

I keep looking at Ryan like sorry, I know he's an ass man.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Sorry, sorry, sorry, Ryan's and then I then as the media world started changing and I was doing more, I wasn't able to go. That not everywhere where you film with a hotel would have a swimming pool, but they'd have gyms. So I started doing so I like lifting, I like doing the numbers, I like attacking numbers. Um so I find doing that, that that's kind of my escape route now. If going to the gym, I'll probably I'll go six times a week. So it's on it, yeah. It's a good thing to do. Like that, I mean it's not bad. Yeah, that's kind of where I've swapped it. It's no, it's nowhere near as much final calls. Definitely won't get in the day's medicine.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

Yeah, and it doesn't give you a headache. Headaches put it lightly as well. Yeah, yeah. We both grow out of addiction half hourly. Like my mum, my mum's an alcoholic and she's sober now, and she did really well. But I think it it isn't. I guarantee as well, even in your 13 years, there's been points where you could be five years in and then you just have a pretty, really tough day. And it's not even like you think you're gonna have a drop, but you could just feel like today would be the day. Yeah, but you push through. And I just think a lot of people think even after 10 years plus, that oh well, he doesn't have to ever worry about it again. Um do you feel like you'd have do you have to think about it a lot or not really?

SPEAKER_01 32:10

No, I don't have to think about it a lot anymore. You probably pass that, no. But no, I am past it, although there is, I don't know, there might be one day every year where I've gone, or like my wife's got a glass of red wine or something, and you just go, fucking hell, that smells lush. Yeah, and you just have a you go, and then you just remember, you just remember. It just catches you by surprise, and you're but I'm now at that point where like it's not it's not and it's not oh fair play.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

No, good.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Well that's also because I'm older, I like I'm not in the party life, I'm not but you are in the you're in the pub and restaurant industry then.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Like that's what was that difficult?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

I I work it actually, and that's where a lot of people said that I thought it would have been a lot harder. Yeah, like but actually it became quite easy because that was a point where I just looked at all the bottles and the beer and I was just like, well, I recognize I thought, well, I I'm gonna see myself as some sort I'm I'm like a drug pusher, I'm a seller here.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

I and that's exactly how I sort of thought well Pablo Esca bar. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

That's fucking good.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

I'm I'm gonna dress it myself. It's my I'm I'm stupid, but my brain is fucking weak. You should open a bar. Yeah, loads of salt on the table, mm-hmm, salt on a straw. I tell you what, I am in.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

You know, it's kind of you know I I look at it and I go, I don't, you know, I don't regret a minute of it. I've I've but I've thoroughly enjoyed my time doing it now with some fucking amazing stories, and you just go, This this was brilliant times, but yeah, I don't I don't regret it, and I wouldn't recommend it for anybody else. But it's easier now because I'm 50 plus years old and you and and I'm not in my 30s where you still want to go out on a Friday and a Saturday night, you still want to do like Josh, you don't know me.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

No, but I do, and I think it is a relief, I'll be honest with you. I don't have a problem with alcohol, but it is weird though. Fucking six, seven o'clock on a Friday night, and I know you're the same, fucking gagging for a point. Yeah, and but uh but I don't rely on it, but it is a nice release. Yeah, drink as much though. They're so much more conscious, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Like all the lads, the young lads, they're all gym obsessed, like it's not like it wasn't like that. Even the uni lads, no one drinks now, it's like it's which probably is another factor that's affected pubs, to be fair, actually. Is that all these uh good things?

SPEAKER_01 34:20

That's another one of those factors and another point. But you're right, yeah, the generation. So kitchen is full of young lads that normally would be, you know, when we were when I was their age, we'd be it would be all about the party time afterwards. But this thought, I mean it's very interesting, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

You get Raven, that's a big thing. They all like going out and do whatever they do with the raves. But if you talk to young lads, no one goes to the pub, which I know obviously that's talk about a lot of water in those places, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

Yeah, yeah. I don't we that we're not rapers, I have no idea, but that's what I hear. The water is really expensive, but nothing else. I'm a pub fan, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

But I was gonna say as well, I did say I was watching one of your shows and you were comparing Chef and to a trade. And I was wondering, I was I was like that's quite an interesting take. But if you were a Sheffin, do you think you would have got into a drifting trade?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah, definitely. That would have been a root. I I think about it quite a lot, and I'd I'd have loved to well, either a trade or um I'd have loved to have been on the fishing boats on the drifting. Yeah, I've been quite lucky. I've done quite a few TV things filming where you're being on boats. I'm always quite good with the seasickness thing, it's not being a problem. Like proper North Sea stuff, and the idea of being out of boat for three or four days, like it is the idea, and then you're cat you're working hard, you're grafting, it's in an environment that nobody else recognises or is a little bit intimidated by the legal. It's like it's one of those spaces that I'd love to do. I love the ocean tea to be free, I think it would have been something something like that. It would have been a manual Lesburg style job. But but cooking is to me like a trade. I mean, and I'm sure hairdressing is the same, but you can't do it.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

Well that's why I completely heard you said to as a trade, yeah. I mean, I mean kind of creativity. Barber is separate now to hairdressing, and I think it was maybe a bit more one, but obviously separate.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

But yeah, definitely is definitely. I just never heard someone, I was watching your show, I just never heard someone put it that way more. It's like a trade where it's like obviously you're working your way through it.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

You learn about the processes of cooking it and putting it all together onto a plate that creates one thing. And now then you can take those building blocks, and there are chefs that can go and be creative. I'm not sure there's barbers that suddenly take the understanding of the basic fundamentals of the craftsmanship, yeah, and then turn it into something else. But I like to go with the craftsmanship, that's it, that's what I understand, and I'll just do that really well. And like, and I'm not artistic in that kind of like creativity way. Yeah, I'm I maybe something a little bit more just solid is something that I like doing the way that I do.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Do you instill that kind of into your chefs too then? Like, is that like how you kind of keep the stars well? Because are you there chefing as well still or two or more?

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Well, I live in Marlowe, so I try to be there. I was there today and try I try to be there two or three times a week. I'll try like with all I'll I'll get into all the spaces at least once every week and try and be into that point of being being in control. So it's also good for team. Yeah, you you've got teams of people. Yeah, yeah. They like to see it, they like to know that you're there and you're a part of it. So all of those things, building teams and building uh infrastructure. How many people have you got working in your how many systems?

SPEAKER_03 37:07

So basically overall five with you in it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, six, six with Callum as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

But they need to know that you're a part of it. You're a part of leaving this.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

I have to convince them that you're a part of it. Sometimes I come over. Well, again, and I'm not even taking a piss. Last year I was off for so long that I sometimes felt guilty going in because I'm like, well, I've been off and the boys have really I was off work for like four or five months last year. Yeah, and the boys, I had to shut this down because I couldn't work, and I've already a couple of lads left me, it was fine, it is what it is. But the boys were growing.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

You tried to keep it open, didn't we? It just wasn't possible.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

We couldn't make it work, we had to make a executive decision. It was what it's still one of the hardest things I've had to deal with, which was my health was terrible, my legs weren't working, and I had to shut this down. But then obviously the boys were working in my other shop and they were keeping that going, and that was basically paying the bills and everything else. So after that, I did struggle to kind of go back in as the boss because I was like, Well, I haven't been working, and then I I that was my own struggle, and they didn't necessarily see that. But I'd tell you something, yeah. Sorry, you didn't see the hands being blanket, yeah. Um but I think at the end of the day, I think it's really hard to sometimes be that you want to try and inspire, encourage, and all that stuff, but you're still dealing with your own shit, yeah. And that's why I think as a as as a as a as I hate saying the boss all the time, but like as the owner of the business, you that is your job to do that, but you're you're also trying to do your own job at the same time, which is working in the business and cutting hair. I know you have all of this going on as well with all your publicity and adverts and TV. It's not anywhere near the same as you, but I get it because I don't really get paid for very much necessarily for what I'm doing, but I'm relying on a bit of the social media stuff on the side. So again, not the same but a different level. But I get that.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

It helps provide growth and funding of a business and trying to keep it moving and it all goes hand in hand. It's all about the singular uh one-dimensional businesses, they're the hardest ones to make work now in any point. And then whether it's whether it's a retail space, whether it's a coffee shop, whether it's a restaurant, whether it's a garage. You know, if you if that's solely what you do, you know, you you need to be able to have a bit more fluidity to it. You need to be able to have different branches that you can try and move into and be creative with it and understand it. Because one singular form of income into a space is actually feel makes your business quite vulnerable, particularly in this day and age. So, yeah, doing it that way and doing it the right way. Ownership, owner guilt is also something really bad. That if you are off for a day, if you've been, I mean, you've been off for three or four months trying to sort your health out where all your team would have been completely behind you and made sure doing everything to make sure that you're okay. Yeah, you'd have still felt really bad that they're doing it.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

I almost didn't want to go and see them because I felt like they and I know that isn't how they felt, but I felt like they were like, Oh, look at him fucking swanling, like he runs the exactly what we were thinking. I know you're not sure and but also that's why I love that they will be like that because actually I don't want the fucking sympathy or anything like that. I actually do want them to be a bit of a ball buster with me, and you are naturally anyway, but but I think as well, like it yeah, it is just tough at times, and I think you do, like you say, carry that guilt. Um yeah, it's difficult.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

It's just one of those things, it's very hard to take that ownership, but then you have to remember that they've carried it going because you've inspired them to do it in the first place, and that also means that you've employed good people with good ethics and the right heart and the right soul, but it'll also take the piss out of you.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Well if 100% someone's gonna be like straight back, but again, I think the the thing that ties us up with all of our sort of the work line of work we're in is people, right? Exactly, and team, but only teens, but we're serving, yeah, we're serving people as well, right? So I what I try and throw into my barbers smack my ass. Is I I try and stuff into my barbers that actually doesn't touch you. You've got lovely earlobes, by the way. We look at ears all day long, but they're the lobes I like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meaty lobes, meaty lobes. I do it. We look at earlobes all the time. I was cutting people's head. And I, you know, I might do a little segment on rating lobes at some point. Yeah, but I'd take start with that. Let's take a picture.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

We go we go get a rating on the lobe.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

BFG. What's Big? Yes, sorry. Yeah, you love that, don't you? I'll tell you what, though, he he was he was good in those Christmas adverts. Oh, sorry, right. Let's get back to the matter of hand. I want to know where you're gonna rate my load. Oh, oh, I'd give that a very high nine and nine point five. Fucking hell. Yeah, no, I know that's what's worrying. Well, let me drink it. Yeah. What was my there was a point there I was gonna make that I think would have been lovely to bring up. I think you've got to. Oh, I was talking about people. That was what we were talking about. Sorry. But I I told the barbers all the time that like it doesn't matter who comes through the door, every person again in our industry, it's probably the same in yours, where like a lot of barbers want to become like a celebrity barber, cut really amazing people, and that's great. If you want to do that, no problem with that. I don't see it like that. I've had opportunities to do that, and it's great, but I see it as the everyday man pays my bills, not just men, we do everyone, but like the everyday person pays our bills, yeah, and that's what's important because it doesn't matter if they're six, sixty, or ninety-six, it's like and that's another thing I'm saying. I don't think plenty of people look after the kids, and I see the fact that actually if we look after kids fuck, if I fuck, don't touch the kids. If I look at if we look at if we look after the kids now, that's a long-term customer, uh, and a possible lifetime if we keep fucking going. And that I I love that seeing it from someone from a young age and you get to know them in a way that actually most other things on the high street don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you get to know someone and they know you and you build that relationship, and then by the time you know you've got a five-year-old that goes up to 15, and then you might cut their dad's hair, and you might cut their siblings' hair. I love that aspect, and we we are we do see that now. We're getting six years in, and we can see that we've like you do a whole family. You do that's a whole family. So, but but but that's beautiful, and that's that's what I'm just trying to get. People is our industry, yeah. Whether it's cutting hair or making food.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

It is, it's a service industry that when people come through the door here, it's the same as a pub or a restaurant. You have to say hello to them, you have to look after them, you have to seat them, you have to you you you you go through the process of the system exactly the same as we would put somebody to a table at a restaurant and going and then delivering something to them that they hopefully love. They they get they think it's so good that they give you a tip at the end.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Service is fifty. I think service and product is 50-50. 100%. Because again, you do beautiful food, we do beautiful haircuts, but if we can't get them in the door with the lovely attitude and service we give them, it doesn't fucking matter then. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

I'm sure you've been to restaurants as well before where you've had great food, but the service is shit and you'd never got back. Yeah, never got lucky. And you go, Well, okay. But if you go to somewhere where the service was mega and everything, the food was a bit shit and they said at the end of the night, Oh, I'm really sorry, and you went, uh no worries, no worries. It was got you come out, you'd still come out and go, Actually, that was a great night and the s waiter was brilliant and this was great and the that gave us an ice cream or because they fucked that up. Yeah. You go back again.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

That's why I miss Little Chef.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Run by dwarfs. So we were talking about it earlier, weren't we? Not not dwarves, not little chef. I do miss I do miss Little Chef though, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 44:17

Did you ever go on a roadside cafe like that? It's pretty cool. I remember as a kid, that was they were the first services.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Speaking of that, actually, one meal now that does bring you back to your childhood. Yeah. You have it anytime.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Well, it's it's fish and chips. Yeah, because fish and chips is always that thing. I think it's kind of like British nostalgia, and you grow up like everyone had a fish and chip shop on the estate. Like if you grew up on the estate, there's always a fish and chip shop on the estate. Or you'd have the chippy van that would drive around and do that. So it's something that you recognize, I think, as a kid and nostalgic.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

And I think that is so British, isn't it? It's like Quintus Sentinels.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Now you can do it. So we do it super top-end, like where it's amazing day boat fish, it's brill or turbo or something mega, and it's just putting an amazing battery just because it's deep fried doesn't mean it's cheap. Whereas cheap fish and chips, I mean the product is cheaper, but actually what you're still getting is a nostalgic value to it. And then when it becomes expensive, it's because the product is different. Yeah. And actually, and you people undervalue fish so much, and when you think day boats go out and they go they go out no matter what the weather it's like. The loss of life in fish like people are risking loss of cod. Do you know what I mean? Well moaning, and you're like, hold on a minute, like stop moaning about it. Like it's amazing. It's hard work on another fish, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

The cows don't fight back, do they?

SPEAKER_01 45:29

No.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

Your mind works mentally, do you not? Imagine being in it. Okay, I'm gonna throw it on you, Queen. I mean, what's your most nostalgic childhood now as an Irishman? Or you tinker.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Soldier spy. So their granny's Irish stew, like proper Guinness stew. I don't think we just put Guinness in it, to be honest, but it's stew. Or mum used to make like this, we called a bug's life pasta. It was just like spinach and pine nuts and it was great, man. My brother still makes it and fuck a lot of good stuff, yeah. But mum's vegetarian, dad's vegetarian, so we just grew up in a vegetarian household, so I go to granny to get a bit of meat.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Yeah, yeah, forget I forget you're a veggie from the moment you came out.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Well, mummy makes a bit of meat, but we grew up mainly vegetarian, yeah. A bit of minge. Yeah, a bit of me. I hate that word as well.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

My mummy's gonna see that now. Sorry, sorry, sorry, Barbara. I don't need it. She's lovely. Actually, talking about you, move on to the other section.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Yes, yes. We do have one little segment. Yes. Because my well, our mothers actually they love you for years. Which I'm sure you're not used to that. I know I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we do have a question actually. Yeah, from our mams.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

I love that. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

So, what did mams? We didn't say this from a we didn't state it from a rummy shrank and iphone. Where is it? Not much. Actually, we didn't actually have to just come into my own brain.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Yeah, it is actually quite a simple question, Bera. But my mum said, if you're at home and you want something quick to eat, what are you making?

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Uh it's it we either do two things. We do an omelette in our house, which is quite good because we get like it no matter I'm not there every night or very often, and then at the weekend you get there and my little man's hungry, there's stuff that's in the fridge. So you can do like a Spanish-style like omel where you can put lots of bits of leftovers and make it super tasty, put the eggs and bake it in the oven. So a Spanish style omelette like that, or cheese on toast. Cheese on toast is always great, in it, yeah. So it's got to have Liam Perrens on it. Hundred percent off.

SPEAKER_03 47:14

So it's like is it are you saying Worcester Schultz in general, or are you saying Liam Perrin's it has to be?

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Well, no, Liam Perens, is it?

SPEAKER_03 47:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

I mean, is it I mean there's Henderson's relish, it's a similar, yeah, but it hasn't got anchovies in it. But Liam Perrens is like the best. That's the good that's the one.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Yeah, Liam Perrin's the one. Yeah, I'm sure you'd be happy to know that.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah, uh strong, strong good cheddar as well. Oh, well that's it. It's gotta be cooked like slower under the grill, not too fast, so they're actually caramelized and almost goes like really salty crispy. That's a bit that's the bit that you want. And you've got to leave it for about three or four minutes before you eat it so that it hardens up just a little bit so it's got texture. Well, I give that a go specifically. That is the top tip for your kids to bottom. Don't go, don't think too early, take it to the grill and eat it. You've got to leave it dry.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Let your cheese dry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that sounds wrong as well. There is another little bit of your memory.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Oh, there is. It's only because it's split. In fact, there's me, my brother, my mum and dad, and 50-50, me and my dad hate aubergines. Yeah. My brother, my aubergines. Yeah, yeah, aubergine. Yeah, sorry. Mum just wants to know it's needed, isn't it? Yeah. We just want to know should they be thrown away or what would you do with an aubergine to get people to like it.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Okay, so if you're pan-frying it or slicing it as a as a vegetable like that, it's not great. And I can see why people don't like it, because it's just a bit soft and a bit slug. But actually, yeah, but actually, if you bake them whole or put them into a barbecue and burn the skins whilst they're like that, yeah. And cook them till they're really soft, and you can actually blacken them on the outside, then bake them through the oven and then scoop all the middle out. Oh, yeah. That then becomes really smoky and delicious. You chop that up and you put you know, parsley and lemon and cream and olive oil, and all of a sudden, that's when it becomes lovely. It's got deep flavour, that's delicious. But I get it, like slices of aubergine. Not good. Nah.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

I think I I actually don't mind like that kind of maybe either deep fried or breaded or something like that with it. But but yeah, I I appreciate what you're saying. Yeah, well, that's lovely. I'll try and get on board with aubergines.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, do you see I I did quite a good politician style question there and said that and shit at the same time. But you know how to cook her property, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

I'll ask my mum's question, Tracy. Can you say hello to Tracy? Hello, Tracy. Half bitch. She's lovely. Sorry, mum, sorry, mum, sorry, mum. She might watch this anyway. No, she loves it. She had uh the start of the message was say hello to Tom, very lovely to meet you. No, she's not here. Lovely, lovely to meet you, lovely to hear me doing this. Uh her question was in with respect to like neurodiversity, can you support children only wanting to eat beige food?

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Like, I suppose she means like like yeah, bright, but literally. So somebody said something to me the other day, and it was like a grown-up saying, Listen, if you want healthy food is colourful. If you you want to eat colourful food, it's the greens and it's the reds and it's it, you know, the whites, and the you know, it if you think of everything, every bit of food that's pretty much unhealthy, it is beige and brain. Yeah, but I think I kind of understand where kids go, where they eat past like people kids' taste buds change, they do develop. Like if you put too much at them too soon, they're not going to eat it.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

And they will eat it for a bit and then suddenly done or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

They go, No, I don't like that. Then they'll go through phases of going to school where somebody else is willing, oh no, I'm not eating that, and they'll go, yeah, no, I'm not eating that anymore. Like it's all agree. Yeah, they all agree. So it's a case. There is a case of kids as they grow up, most kids, but if you are eating salads around you, vegetables, and if you're eating like normal, just a standard, like fresh food that you're cooking around you, kids will see that that is the way to go. I'm I'm for a longer game of development. I think wouldn't it would listen? It would be lovely. I have a 10-year-old son, and I'm shit like there's lots of parents out there who say, Oh yeah, their kids are eating this and they're having broccoli and they're having all the salad and they're doing all their and you think that's got to be fucking bullshit. Yeah, that's got to be it has to be a bit of because uh him and his mates and the majority of them are not eating fucking that. And all of us are like grown-up parents that are right that are going actually, you know, they're all eating normally. Yeah. Like, there's no way that they're kidding, and as much as you try, so there might be two or three kids in a class of 30 that are just going, oh yeah, what different type of salad leaf is that? But the majority of them, I don't think so. I think it's a case of you have to educate them, but I think it's a slower burn than a quicker, than a quicker solving of the.

SPEAKER_03 51:38

I think that's a great answer, the way you've gone about. And I actually I've just realized why my mum might have asked that because when I was a kid, I was severely intolerant to a lot of foods, not allergic, intolerant, it was a stomach sort of issue. But I'm talking from the age of six up until 11, strict diet. Right. And this was pre fuck pre-threthromile in Tesco's or whatever MS. Um, but pre-all that so God bless my mum living in North London, like she made me bump at lunches every day, and sometimes it would have smoked salmon in it because I wasn't getting the protein because I couldn't eat wheat, dairy, yeast, sugar, gluten, MSG, and it was in a lot of stuff. Yeah, and again, it wasn't just as easy as like, oh yeah, whacking some chicken nuggets because I couldn't have the breaded bit on the side. There was so many aspects, and I I just sorry, it just made me think about it. That that's why she asked, and that's nice that she asked that. Thank you. Thank you, mum. Um, but yeah, I remember being at school and like you know, they get they give out sweets for birthdays, and I couldn't have that, so it was always a ready sort of packet of crisps, and I think that gives you almost like um almost like a complex. So when I got a little bit older, I went like rebelled. So like through my early like preteen teenagers, I was just eating shit.

SPEAKER_04 52:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

Like eating sweets before school because I or I, you know, yeah, I I like binged, and I think it gave me a little bit of an unhealthy understanding. But as I've got older, because I did eat quite well, because of what my mum did, yeah. Um you know, you know, I think I now appreciate food in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

I think it's kids, you learn the habits of your parents and you learn, well, okay, actually, this is good, and it doesn't matter what you're thinking you're doing now, you do realize that long term. Also, all the information is out there now. Yeah, and we talked about it a bit ago about kids not drinking as much or not doing the part you know, the information is out there about nutrition and stuff. So people are beginning to learn. They do know what's right and wrong. There is a thing, you know, taking but people also have to take a sense of personal responsibility, but you can't inflict that onto kids straight away. They have to grow and they have to learn. But the information is there and learning from the parents around you.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

And also it is fine for them to have a fucking nuggets and chips and pizza day every so often, isn't it? Especially hardworking parents who haven't got always got the time to prepare a whole meal or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

But this is the thing, there's so much drops into the idea of food snobbery, and I find that sometimes I struggle with that juxtaposition of the fact that we, you know, have a too much space, it costs an arm and a leg to go and eat at. But then at the same point, my background comes from in the we talked about the thing with Marcus Rashford.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

It's about trying to, you know, if somebody is using budget aisle, cheap as you can get chicken, like food snobbery is a big thing. So you could buy, you know, if you're a single parent that lives in a high-rise flat in Birmingham and you've got two kids, but you are cooking, roasting a chicken and doing some carrots and potatoes, but the chicken is one of the really dirt cheap two-pound whole chickens. Don't question where the chicken's coming from. That's all you can afford. You are cooking a proper piece of protein, you're doing vegetables, you're doing a proper good job there. You're not going with the easy option of a 99p burger from McDonald's. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

You've gone with actually tried, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

You're trying, yeah, for the similar sort of money, you're actually cooking a chicken products, but done well. So I always go with actually food snobbery drops into it. You buy the best produce that you can afford. Yeah, that's it. Standard. Now don't judge anybody else from it. Now, listen, if you're if you're in a position where you can afford a £15 chicken that's got higher welfare and has been looked after properly, but you're still buying a £2.50 one, that's where you've got more then.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

Fair enough. I like that. I like that a lot. We should have actually told you this before that we were going to ask you. But we have got a segment here which we've been doing quite a lot as well, where we ask people for their embarrassing stories. Yeah. I don't know if anything comes to mind. We'll let you think about it for a minute if you want. But we've been doing it again with some of our barbers, some of our guests that come on, and it just seems to be well received. It's not even about you embarrassing yourself, but I just think it's sometimes can be just a story that we've probably all fucking done it.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

You know, okay. And it doesn't have to be like shitting yourself because that's a very common one. Has been on this, yes. Yeah, honestly, has been. I mean, I I could do a whole podcast just on that.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Um I don't think I'd be embarrassed.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Absolutely. It's just like you know, standard. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, if you've got one off the bat, we'll go for it. If not, we can think about another question and go for it. No problem. It depends on how yeah, I'm just trying to figure out. No, of course. I know that's a that's a different one. Um, yeah, what was up?

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Did you want to? Yeah, I think. Well, I've got a mate who's also chef, and he was just wondering if you've got any horror stories from back in the day. Oh, like, because we obviously know.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

There's so many different points of being in kitchens that you remember, um, and it and there's such an in uh I mean an environment and spaces that are so sometimes can be so extreme and so like that you think, oh my god, that it just becomes normality. And you think, you know, this is just a normal thing. I used to work in a basement kitchen where people there would be a a a scallop dish on that would be, I don't know, it was 25 quid as a starter, and it was super, and then this was years and years ago that I was working in this basement kitchen, but uh by 11:30 we were short-staffed, and people would have to leave to get their last train, and someone coming in and still ordering this dish at 11:30 and nine. And the juxtaposition of it is that it's this big pot restaurant, but we haven't got enough share, so the guy that's cooking it is like it's the it's a kitchen porter. Some some guy that uh like Yeah, so then it's it's just like they're paying for this, some guy who's not knowing what's doing. I'll put the scallop in the pan, he's looking at me, can't speak English, don't know what he's doing. It's just like you're putting this dish together and you know, so there's all sorts of things like that that you look back on and you think, my god, these are moments of like there's so many different stories, some of which probably are not repeatable. But I I mean, it is one of those industries that if you're in, there's enough stories. If you ask someone, you'll find something out, yeah. There's enough stories, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

There's lots of yeah, and like I'm sure you're you're yeah, we've got a few from yeah. Well he's had a few for sure, but he was just wondering because he's doing it now and he loves us, and I'm sure he has to say hello as well. Yeah, he's worked in a couple of good kitches with her, but no. Where is he working? Is he he's actually he wasn't a Mitchell Star restaurant in London for a while. I can't remember the name of it, he's gonna get angry at me now, but now he's actually in Barbados doing like private cooking, so he's got the life at the point. Yeah, he's got he's got a good life now. He's he's living life to the maximum.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

It's he's a great crack, so that's what was again, it's similar in the industries that like you know you can just travel and do these jobs, and that's the beautiful thing of it. Which where would you be if you could be anywhere in the world to cook? Or do you you are you in the right place?

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Yeah, I'm in the right place. I love the UK, I love British food, I love British farming. We're very lucky here because we have four quite defined seasons. And those seasons, the way that they change are the way that they move, they're exciting as a chef, you know, when spring comes and the asparagus coming through, it's almost done now, which is magical, and we'll start moving through into the summer bits where you get peas and broad beans and summer fruits, and then and then you move on to like the root vegetables and like into autumn and winter, and it becomes exciting as a chef that's always constantly moving. Barbados, beautiful, but it's warm, yeah. It's either rainy or not rainy. So, in terms of produce, it's fairly similar. You go to over into Asia, the Asian cuisine I think is absolutely delicious, it's super exciting. However, like you're in Thailand, there's a flavour profile that's the same all year round, yeah, because that's where it grows, it can't change. So it doesn't. So, whilst that's an exciting idea to be in Barbados and he might love it for a year or two, maybe even eventually you'll go, actually, I've quite fancy cookies in Sweden turnips. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the seasonal aspect is that that is always exciting, like you said, when you know what's coming. I think even when we eat somewhere, I do like to see a menu change on depending on what's what's readily available in the best restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Yeah, but I mean you it it is what makes going exciting while you would go back to another restaurant and why you would go back there, particularly if it's one that's cooking fresh food and produce that you really enjoy, and you and chefs and places that you know and you like, yeah, you would go back. Seasonality will make make people move in to go and have stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

No, I might as well. Maybe one of our last questions. I'm just wondering from your point of view, if you're going into London, what is one restaurant? They say one restaurant that isn't crazy expensive that you can think that's where you should go or somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

That isn't crazy expensive. I mean, there are so many brilliant places in the middle of London that we're so, so lucky. Whether it's, you know, you have got those brilliant three mission star spaces, and we've got some great um even one-star places that aren't too expensive. There's a there's a great restaurant called Mountain, which is in Soho. Yeah, which is uh Callum Callum. Callum Softball Mountain. Yeah, yeah. It's brilliant. And it, I mean, it can be, I mean, it's quite price. It's expensive. But it's but it's actually brilliant. It's really vibey, it's a great place, it's super comfortable. They've opened up the team behind it. Have opened another one called Impala, which is um uh cuisine inspired from Cairo, I think, Egyptian style cuisine, flatbreads and visible, and it's brilliant and it's super exciting. Those sort of places, mega, those are those kind of places that I go to. Vibey, relaxed, no, no issues, you know, food will come to the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

It's all round, that's what you want. It's not just the grub, it's it's the whole app, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Chefs walking on flames in front of you, chatting away. Those are the sort of things, those are the sort of places that I really like. There is a time and a place for super special restaurants. Yeah. If you want budget, there's a great French bistro called Josephine. There's one on uh one on um Fulham Road and one over in Marlebone, and you can eat like a budget lunch there for like 22 quid, or you can have and it's and it's mega like.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

I mean it's nice then, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

Brilliant, isn't it? Like really good, like old school like French cuisine, but done so well, super tasty.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:56

But not not yeah, like it's it's simple, but just fucking beautiful food.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Yeah, like if you were in a well, it's based on the the one in um Fulham Road is based on a uh Lyonnaise Brasserie, a Lyonnaise bistro. So where you would go there and you'd have a slice of terrine or a bit of whatever. Super tasty, super easy. Just like Cafe Rouge.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

Just remember them as well, they're not around anymore. Yeah, no, no, they're not around anymore. No, no, it's like Cafe Rouge, but good.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:21

Yeah, but good, yeah. I like that rapid rouge but good. Well, I think we have got to kind of like think about wrapping up. So I we did want to do a little rapid fire thing. Yeah. Should we do that? Yeah, do the fire. And then I'd love to get you about a story if you can think of it. If it's not a few, if not, at all. Yeah, yeah. If not, we'll get you to voice note it in. Yeah. Should we do one after the other and you go? We'll do it quick. All for it gone. Uh shall I start? Favourite comfort food. Well, cheese and toast.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

I actually like cheese, it's very easy. Like cheese, grapes, and like cured meats. Is it like that's the easy go-to if I get in late at night? No cooking.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Nice. Tea or coffee?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Uh coffee every time. I mean, I love a builder's tea, but coffee is the one. I like to, I don't know, 12, 15 cups a day.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

What's the what's that?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

Canal. Wow. Fair place, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Something like you to be very easy. Yeah, and that's what's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:11

He's the same to be fair. Oh, yeah. 12, 15, I've seen you, I'll be on the floor. I've seen you seven or eight, though. Yeah, I've seven or eight, but that's that's my maximum. No judgment, but just um I'm judging.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

There was one day we were filming in Italy and we were filming coffee culture. There's a show that comes out on ITV, um, Tom Carriage Cooks Italy in July. And there was one day we were filming, it was about the coffee culture in this space, and I can't remember where we were, it might have been Naples or wherever it was, anyway. Uh, and I took 22 coffees because we were filming it, and I just get 22 coffee. Yeah, but I tell you. Did you sleep then, right? I was phoning my PA back at work. We got so much. It was fucking she was like the managing director. I was phoning in, then I was phone down, phone him a PA, then I was sending an email. But they were all in the same phone.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

I'll be honest, Tom, before you came, we just fucking did a line of espresso just for pump. We don't have any edge, they were just fucking pumping. That's what it's that's what it's about. Um, best pub snack. Uh pork scratchings by a lot of people. I know you were gonna say that. Come on, sweetheart. Favourite chef.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

Oh, Marco Pierwhite.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

It's funny because that was the next question. Ramsey or Marco Pierwite, that was all we said.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Yeah, Marco, just because he was there before Gordon, Gordon learnt off Marco. Marco's actually, there's Marco's cookbook. There's a time, is a it's called there's a white heat cookbook that came out um well, it's nearly 30 years ago now. I was eight, 18 actually, so that's a that's 35 years ago. Came out, um, and it was one of those seminal moments in in British cooking history because every cookbook before was about French chefs and long white aprons and polished shoes and tall hats. And then there was this scraffy guy smoking fags with a butcher's apron on, prepping stuff, working really hard with bags underneath his eyes, and all of a sudden you was like, That's this is the guy. And the photography in it was done by a fashion photographer called Bob Carlos Clark. So he had all these black and white, amazing pictures in it that were fucking mega that captured this energy, and then beautiful food that Marco was cooking. So Marco was that moment, and in that Gordon was one of his chefs depart, he's one of his young chefs. So Marco, then Gordon, although Gordon is a fucking genius. He is on it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

Do you mean food or his bit of business? Everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

He's a superhuman. Yeah. If you know him, you meet him, he is not only is he just a brilliant chef, but he's so connected. And there's there's the caricature of Gordon, and then there's the there's the businessman.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:20

I feel like you saw that in his recent doc. I think you did, I think they actually really did show that really well that he was he doesn't stop. No, and then he gets that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

I mean, the stop that he made on his own with his own T with his own production company was about Gordon.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

Yeah, but the reality of that's that but that but but but then again, the business sense. Yeah, but like you was we were saying that a little bit before, like yeah, you know, that he he is he's capitalised on everything in the right way, yeah, and he does it, and he does it in the right way.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

He's a he's a brilliant human, and he's one of those guys that if you don't know he's in the room, you just you can't see him, you know he's in the room. He's got this for it about me. And he and he is genuinely brilliant at what he does.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

He's I mean, I I you know I thought about calling my shop the F-word because of my swear. So I was like, well, fuck it, we might as well. I'm I'm gonna go down the Gordon Ramsay route, but not gonna swear at people. But you know, I didn't decide to do that. That's my and it would have fucking fun. Yeah, he would have he would smash it. And he's like it's you know, good cunts. If you could put us in touch with him, yeah, we'll have a we'll have words about it. Uh one of my other questions was um like your favourite exercise that you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

I I work in the gym all the way to lifting to do deadlifts. So my deadlift, I love the deadlift, so I do everything in the week to try and get to the best better deadlift or just slight improve it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

And then probably the last one to be here. What's more stressful? Saturday night service or film and TV.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

I love I I quite enjoy, but I enjoy the process of making television. It's not it's not stressful. There's not live TV is quite stressful because you you're thinking about that's where you get a bit of an edge to it. Um making TV is nice because it is a process of making it. I hate watching it. I am quite uncomfortable that people know who I am. Like it's it's always a bit weird walking into a room and it's but it it's like I've never chased fame. I'll come from being a chef. Saturday night services can be super stressful, but they're also my rush, yeah. You love so I would if you gave me the choice of being in either one, it would be a Saturday night service.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

One one last one, actually. Does Michigan Stars make you happy? Or is it everything? Is what I'm trying to ask.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Um is it everything? It is. Uh it's helped make businesses. It's most definitely helped make ours. It's been and what they do do is give you a uh a level of standard that you personally are trying to achieve. And because you don't know what that you don't know what the um what boxes you need to tick for a mission star. Like there isn't there isn't a process that you have to have this, this, and this, and this. Nobody knows what it is, yeah. But you do have to drive yourself to personal, professional standards that are there, that take you to that space, and I really enjoy that process of it, and then asking more questions of yourself and trying to get better. So mission stars are incredibly important from a team perspective for personal standards, but then on a bigger picture, your team that then work with you that you attract staff, or staff will leave you after two or three years going, I've worked in a Michelin star or a two Michelin star space. So, for their point of view, it makes them feel proud that they've done it, it makes their parents feel proud that they're there, and all of those sort of things. So, yeah, they are incredibly important because they're seen as a global standardization of something that is good. Yeah, so yeah, it's a measurement, it's a good thing. It's a measurement, yeah. If you are cooking for the mission guide, you're doing it for the wrong reason. But if you are cooking for the guests, because the guests read the mission guide and they know that there's a level, if you're cooking to that level, that's what you need to be aiming for, and the mission guide will recognise it. Right. So, do you want me? You don't cook for them, you cook for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:53

It's the perspective of wait while you're doing it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

While you do it, and it and it is it is the greatest guide in the world, and there'll be people who say no, it's not, it's this and that, or that you know it doesn't matter anymore because there's social media and all and all of those things. Yeah, no, that it doesn't matter in terms of getting bums on seats or what you do, but actually in terms of just the standardization of your own standards and your team standards and giving them something to feel proud about, that's great. Like saying I work in a restaurant that's got 100,000 followers, I mean great. I work in a restaurant with 20 followers, but as a mission star, that's what you're doing. From a young chef's perspective, that means much more.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:27

Yeah, and I suppose it is understanding all that, isn't it? And really what's important. Again, I know there's the the young chefs at Fallow that have really done that, they've done really well.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

They're amazing, but Fallows are great restaurant.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:36

It is, I've eaten there as well, and it is lovely. And again, I actually didn't even have a table, I had a bar, and I fucking loved that. And again, it kind of comes back to the service. The staff behind the bar were great, yeah, and the atmosphere was buzzing. It was a Sunday off, it was fucking rammed. We were allowed to take the dog in there, like it was just and I wasn't walking great at the time, and they really were accommodating and things like that. That just actually, I'd be perfectly honest, the food is absolutely amazing, and I'm not saying I don't remember the food, I don't really remember the food. It was it was what they did in there, right? And that's just the thing what we're coming back to every time, isn't it? Like quality is amazing, but service is a really big thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

You had a good meal there, but you don't necessarily remember it. You remember the absolute serving, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:14

It was the roast, and the meat was amazing, and we took it away because we couldn't eat it all. It's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

I've been a fellow three, four times, and I and I love it. I think it's great, but they do get they've got great energy, but their social team is also really good.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:24

They've got that's why I was jumping on. Yeah, they it is like, and I think that's where they have grabbed it with both hands, which I think a lot of people are trying to do, but actually, in the way they've done it, it's not it's not like they're it's not a second thought, it's actually what they realize it's important.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Yeah, exactly. It's part of it, but also because it's a great restaurant, they cook great food, it hasn't got a mission style, but it has got great cooking in it. Yes, if you're a chef that's working there, you're learning loads, you're seeing, you're seeing it's fast paste as well, isn't it? Yeah, it's fast fate, you're learning service, but you're learning how to make things, you're learning how to cook different things from different processes, whether it's braising, using cheaper ingredients, doing all of those sort of things that Fallow does really well. You if you do two or three years at Fallow, you are coming out as a great chef with brilliant hands that know what they're doing. Do you know what I mean? You it's a good grounding space, it's a great restaurant to be at.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:08

Yeah, I I had a great experience there. But obviously, Tom, we want to we want to wrap up. But the the last thing I want to ask is like, what have you got going on in the next couple of years?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Have you got anything to uh we've got a TV show coming out in July. Um, Tom Carriage Cooks Italy, which was a brilliant film. I went out to Italy for a few months uh back with Tom. Is that on the cards? No, that's not on the cards. Will that ever happen? Yeah, well, if you're offered, don't think so. We're working really hard to possibly not get back. I think that there's a big campaign that when does this get aired? When's this going out?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:39

Probably next week. This week and Thursday, potentially, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

Yeah so so there's a big drive at the minute um from behind the scenes of trying to save hospitality, the same as you are from a perspective in the high street, from retail, trying to drive and get people to understand the the issues and the cost coming in. So there's a uh a huge campaign that's gonna be driven um starting early this summer, all the way through to budget um about saving hospitality or giving it an opportunity for growth, which would be um pushing for VAT reduction to 10% to bring it in line with the rest of Europe. That's an impact.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

Such an impact that'd be good.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

That's gonna be the biggest thing that we're gonna be on for the next four or five months. So you're heavily involved, are you quite involved in that? Very involved in that. And then conversations. I'm very fortunate to being able to have conversations with government front like uh like front bench ministers with this government and previous government. You know, I I think when you end up finding your space with a voice, you've got to read it. Yeah, yeah. So I second that. Yeah, uh there we go. Let me cut that prick's hair.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:40

No, no, it won't do it. And I'll cook him a meal. Yeah, we'll probably fuck him up. Anywho, honestly, sir Tom, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. It's been an absolute pleasure to honestly thank you for coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

Hey, a most embarrassing moment is it is a there's a there was an evening where we were doing a chef's table um perspective where we were cooking for 10 people in front of them, all of us as chefs, and there was loads of other chefs in there, and there was lots of different tables in one great big room for a big charity gig. And we started cutting our main course so everyone had an individual duck pie, and we're slicing it in front of them to serve their duck pie, and you cut through the middle of it, and just as you feel the knife go through, you think, fuck me, this is raw. And you open it up, and all the pies are fucking raw. How many was it, sir? Ten people in front of all the guests and all the other chefs and everything. It's one of the horrific moments that I've had in in from a chef's perspective because you stand there and you think, I've fucking no idea how to solve this.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:37

Uh it's not like you just put it back in the pan or anything. It's too late as that point, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

So it was a big fucking problem. So that and you can see everyone looking at you going, fucking two mission stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that was that's one of the worst because I think it doesn't come from it's not falling over, it's not shooting yourself, it's actually from being a from a professional.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:56

I yeah, you go, yeah, fucking what have I done? Yeah, I just want the world to swallow me out right now. The fucking mallard's done me in.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:04

That's the best sentence to finish this. Yeah, yeah. Tom genuinely face paper, thank you for listening to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

Yeah, it was it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

We love your story and we've we've been following it for ages, and genuinely we just want to keep seeing you, man. Thanks, bud. Yeah, please, mate, and we'd be looking forward to our free meal. Ten percent perfect. That's just the V18.