In 1999, Peter Fuchs moved to Wales to oversee a 20 bedroom extension and the installation of new kitchens at Newport's Celtic Manor.
Since then, he has travelled the world, spending several years in Saudi Arabia, where he oversaw seven restaurants - and, on one occasion, catered for 3,000 people in one sitting - and Greece, where he directed five hotels for one of his former employers.
But, he said, “Celtic Manor was always in my heart. It was somewhere written in the stars that I would come back here."
And, seven years ago, the prodigal chef returned. Now set to launch the International Convention Centre, Europe's largest conference hall, the veteran culinary director told The Staff Canteen about what makes running kitchens at scale so different from what we traditionally expect from a chef.
What does a culinary director do?
Peter's motto? "The bigger the better," he laughed.
The new convention centre will have a 1,200 square meter kitchen and enough room to feed 5,000 people at once - no small feat.
But this doesn't intimidate Peter and his team, who, since he returned to Celtic Manor, have catered for more than 4,000 people for the 2014 NATO summit and welcomed over 50,000 spectators on every day of the 2010 Ryder Cup.
He said he feels very fortunate to have been given the freedom to dictate everything from the architecture and the design of the kitchen to the installation of the equipment and the oversight of the team.
“Let’s put it this way, it’s not your average convention centre.”
This is not to say that Peter isn’t a chef in the conventional sense – he has overseen many kitchens over the years, but he is also responsible for design and managing large teams of chefs – nearing 150 at times – often blurring the lines between F&B and culinary direction.
"I look after the money, the budgets, the payrolls, I oversee development for new restaurants, I choose the crockery."
"Yes I still run the kitchen, but there’s so much more to do than just putting
