worked at The Box Tree in Ilkley, in Marco Pierre White's heyday.
“I remember I picked up a cook’s knife, and I was just about to carve a terrine and Marco turned around and said: ‘Daniel, Daniel, turn that aubergine over - we used to confit aubergines to make a tian. I turned around and it hit the fridge and the knife went all the way around my hand.”
“Being daft as I was back then – I was about nineteen – I turned it, I got a cloth and I wrapped it around my hand and kept on working. It was about quarter past twelve at this point, and at half two the cloth was red, my hand was knackered and I went to Marco and I said: ‘Marco, I think I need to go to the hospital, my finger is sort of hanging off’ and he said ‘fine, you can go to the hospital but if you’re not back for tonight you’ll be sacked.”
“And that’s what it was like.”
Acknowledging the extremity of the incident, he added: “He was the book. Marco was the man and if you wanted to go anywhere in this industry, you just said: ‘yes Marco.’”
“It was my dedication to the industry. I wanted to achieve. It was important to me. It just goes to show the therapy was worth it,” he laughed.
Not how it has to be
Ultimately, the chef conceded that while this is what made him, things don't need to be - and can't be - done in the way they were before, not least because it makes staff retention nearby impossible.
What matters most - and what meant the most to him when he learnt to be a chef, was the sense of being part of something bigger than him.
“I loved the family. Everywhere you went, you felt like you were part of a team going forward."
"That’s what great Michelin-starred kitchens are about: you’re a team of individuals pushing in the same direction together. It’s like going to war every service but it’s now all control. And d’you know what, it’s much nicer to work in a kitchen where you’re not getting shouted at. The fear shouldn’t be in a kitchen anymore.”
