between you, trying to get eight banquet-worthy dishes, or even just fit enough for the show.
Image: Orwells, Shiplake, Oxfordshire
Do you two have a similar style of cooking?
When it comes to the restaurant, we sing to the same tune, but when you have the opportunity to come up with your own ideas, you let your own individuality show.
You saw his fish dish, he loves sole, he loves Verjus, he’s been doing that for years, that is him – but I like your homely, hearty, minimalistic food, where every bite is flavoursome. I try to take one ingredient and do the most with it, showcase it by cooking it in a different style like the beetroot dish.
And Tom said he loved every element of it because he could taste the salt bake, the pickle and I thought that was cool, because that is me.
My main dish took me right back to being a kid, and having those cultural evenings as children, playing the trombone, getting the guitar out, the keyboard, every musical instrument in the house -and we’d always have ribs.
It might not seem banquet worthy but I wanted to showcase my family and what music meant to me and this is how tight it brought us all together.
I nearly cried when I presented the main. I had to take a breath.
They didn’t have a fryer, and I’ve never used induction, and they said I’d have to put the duck fat in a Le Creuset Pot – it took forever to heat up and the chips came out crispy but pale at the same time – and they said I couldn’t cook them again, so I said ‘whatever, I’ll just serve these white things.’
But that was my mistake, I wasn’t in control of the fat that day.
When it came to the dessert there was no actual aeration – I’d practiced at Orwells with our AMCV machine, and it was working fine, but I got to the studio and they said ‘oh we don’t have one that size so you can’t do it.’ So they ordered one in but I didn’t get time to practice, I just went in blind.
Why did you call your dessert 'Guilty Pleasure?'
Because as a kid I was a fat boy, and I swear to God, I was 16 stone when I was a kid, I just loved cake.
It got to the point that no matter what family party – you know those black forest gateaux that you get, where they’re frozen and you take the plastic off the side and all the cream just sticks, you end up licking half the plastic – I had two slices every time.
I didn’t care, I had one and someone would be like, ‘you want another one?’ and I’d be like ‘yes, please.’
So it was my guilty pleasure. No matter what family party, no matter what music was playing, I would have black forest gateau with lashings of cream. I felt rubbish after it, but I’d just go back on the bouncy castle and have a laugh.
Would you have another crack at GBM if they asked you again?
It’s a good experience for any chef to do because it tests you. Me and Ryan, we do everything together, but when you’re taken into a certain situation and put in with your peers, people you may look up to or who look up to you and you get the opportunity to cook for a vet, it’s showcasing your skills.
I think all chefs at one time in their life should experience that.
It gives you confidence that you never had before. That’s what it did for me the first time and that might be why I felt so relaxed the second time.
Where else am I going to cook my food for Tom Aikens, one on one, unless he hires me as a private chef (and I doubt it)?
If they asked me again, I’d never say never. Even if they asked me in five years’ time, I’d love to. It’s great for little old Liverpool.
Competing with other chefs at your level, it’s kind of like sibling rivalry. You love the person opposite you and you think they’re as good as you but you think ‘I want to be better than you, I love you but I’m just going to leave you in my dust. I’m not going to show you that, I’m just going to smile politely.’
I don’t think I could’ve got two better people to cook with than Adam and Hrishi, they were just lovely. We were having a laugh, we were having a sing, and we were jumping on with each other wherever we needed to, even when everything was under control. Because you just feel like you’re working in a team, even if it was just wiping plates for each other.
It’s all trust as well, because you could sabotage people. But then you’d probably come across as a bugger.
How was it?
