Aaron Mulliss, Hand & Flowers, Marlow

Aaron Mulliss is head chef at Tom Kerridge’s The Hand & Flowers in Buckinghamshire. He has been an integral part of the kitchen staff since 2007 and quickly impressed Tom Kerridge. He was promoted to head chef of the Hand & Flowers in 2010 after experience in London and the West Country.

The Hand & Flowers is an extremely prestigious restaurant with a Michelin star and a 6/10 rating in the Good Food Guide so Aaron has done exceptionally well to move up the ladder so quickly. Without further ado, both Aaron Mulliss and Tom Kerridge were kind enough to speak to The Staff Canteen about Aaron’s promotion and the restaurants future.

Introduction by Tom Kerridge

Tom, give us an outline of Aaron's role and responsibilities here at the Hand & Flowers.

Aaron's role here at the Hand & Flowers is to basically: stand shoulder to shoulder with me and make sure that the food that we send out, is up to the standard that we want to achieve, the day to day running of the kitchen, pretty much making sure that most of the orders are organised, things are sorted. One of the key factors here is we try to run a real happy ship and that everyone has a good laugh and that everyone gets on. It's a big family thing here so Aaron's role is motivator as well.

You have obviously had great success but with success and being busy comes demands on your time, so you can't be here all the time. So how important is it to have someone like Aaron here running the business and that the wheels don't fall off when you're away?

Me and Aaron both work with very different management styles, Aaron's nearly ten years younger than me so he's learning the ropes of how to man-manage people.

He must be 15 then?

Yeah ((laughs)) you're very kind. No I think Aaron's 28, maybe 29 this year. He's learning the ropes of man-management as well but at the same time his cooking ability and his strength in leading that kitchen is invaluable to me. It allows me to be able to go and do other bits and bobs every now and again and do some promotional work. It's very much a structured environment where no one's left standing alone on their own looking around like a deserted ship. So yeah it's very important that Aaron is in control of what he does and is supported heavily.

How long has he been with you?

Aaron's been with me it must be nearly four years and recently been promoted to head chef. He came here as a chef de partie and was very soon promoted to sous chef when my old sous chef moved on. It was a natural replacement and to be honest we weren't really looking for a head chef I was quite happily working with it but Aaron over the last six months has forced himself into that role. He's driven himself and he's pushed himself and he's motivated himself to create that role that's given me no other option but to make sure he's head chef and he runs it.

But that's good isn't it?

Oh it's incredible it's a huge credit to himself for him making that position his. He's grasped the opportunity with both hands and he's really taken full throttle so fair play to him. Brilliant thank you for that Tom.

Aaron Mulliss, Head Chef at The Hand & Flowers

Okay Aaron let's start by you introducing yourself.  If you can give us an outline of your role, responsibilities, the sort of things you do on a day to day basis, let's start there.

I'm currently the head chef of the Hand and Flowers pub in Marlow. My day to day job is primarily to make sure that we keep the standard of the food as if Tom was here day in day out. We've got a Michelin star 6/10 in the GFG so to keep that standard is very important.

So you're doing something right?

Yeah absolutely. Every single dish, everything that's cooked has to be at a level and that primarily is my role. Also to keep the boys motivated because if we didn't have a great team then we wouldn't be where we are, I keep them driving on, I drive myself on and help keep the business going forwards. We're always pushing on and we always want to do better, day in day out and today we'll hopefully be better than we were yesterday and so on and so forth.

So where were you working before then? Had you worked in a Michelin environment?

This is the first Michelin starred restaurant I've worked in. Actually tell a lie I did three days at Royal Hospital Road. I got offered a job I took it and I lasted three days.

As long as that ((laughs)).

I did three days got my knives and legged it to Sloane Square tube station, but it was completely the wrong career move for me at the time. Basically I started cooking when I was 15, quit when I was 18, didn't want it any more, wanted to.

Why was that?

I wanted beer and women.

Most 18 year olds do.

Absolutely. I'd never experienced going out in a pub, socialising with my mates I was always in the kitchen, and I loved it but it came to a point where I just wanted something else. It's very hard for young chefs because their peer group is doing all these wonderful things that youngsters do and I don't mean that in a patronising way.

And yet chefs aren't. Do you think that's why there's not a thousand Toms, or a thousand Sat's (Bains) , Claude's