First of all, Chef Williams, thank you for inviting us in today.  It’s fantastic to see such a large brigade in action.  Let’s start by asking – What does it mean to be the Executive Chef of The Ritz Hotel London?

That’s actually a very good question.  It’s something to be very, very proud of.  I certainly am.  It’s something that I have always aspired to and I have worked in many classic hotels over the last twenty five years, so, yes, I would say “˜Proud’ more than anything.  I really do enjoy the fact that I am the Executive Chef at The Ritz London.

You mentioned that you have worked at some classic hotels, such as Claridges, The Berkley – how important was it for you to come to an operation that had its own restaurant?

Very important, I am a cook; that’s what I do: you can call me all sorts of different things, but my whole inspiration, my whole joy is the cooking aspect of the role.  I don’t want people to think I am standing at the stove all the time – I am a little bit old for that, but in the same sense it is about what you are creating and I am a great believer that chefs evolve in a very specific fashion right from the start of their career.

Chefs learn by tasting. To start with they actually make most dishes too complex and over complicated. They then iron this out and become more simplistic; but whatever level you are at, you have to continue evolving your cuisine all the time; in my opinion, this is a very important journey for chefs to take.  The moment that someone like me stops evolving, they’re effectively dead in this industry, and that is what actually happens so many times, which is why being physically involved in cooking holds so much precedence over the business aspect of jobs like this.

The role of the hotel Executive Chef is very, very different now compared to fifteen/twenty years ago. Then you had great hotel chefs; industry heavyweights  such as Kromberg, Edelman, Mosimann, Bourdin; they were chefs with great tradition and great restaurants but now the role has changed.  You cannot compare their role with what is required today.

I think, first and foremost, that chefs have been on a journey throughout the ages – from the seventies, what happened here in Great Britain was the tours of France; there were the great chefs of France – the Roux brothers, obviously, Michel Bourdin (Chef de Cuisine at The Connaught) and the like … they came across, they learnt to speak English and they educated cooks here in England. And then the General Managers started to say “At what price?”  In other words, they asked what it was costing and what the labour costs were.  Then what happened was that they realised that the costs were high; but you are seeing great food, so there is then pressure to sustain the quality but bring the costs in-line, and what happens then is that the focus is taken away from the cooking, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make money – it’s very important to do that – but the moment you actually focus on one thing you lose another element.  It’s very important that we never lose sight of the reason we are here, and that is to cook.  But that evolution has to come back and you have to train people to run their own restaurants and to really make sure that the right cooking is in the very best hotels.

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