day to day basis. I spend probably half the morning on the phone talking to suppliers about what is best and what is available, while of course trying to get the best price, too.
What have you learnt from Jason Atherton?
Loads! Even going back to Maze, standing across from the pass as a senior chef de partie, learning to cook meat and fish. And now he’s taught me how to run a successful little bistro. He’s been probably the most influential person in terms of my career, him and Clare.
You’ve worked in Michelin kitchens, how do they compare to where you are now?
We run Little Social the same way that we worked in Maze, we try to work with military precision, we place high importance on the quality of produce, we work with a lot of dedication and passion, and there’s a ton of discipline in the kitchen. We just push to provide the best food every single day that we can, so that people are happy when they are walking out the door! It’s the same with regards to service, we just want every single guest leaving this restaurant to be satisfied.
What was the biggest challenge that you had to overcome when working for Clare?
The most challenging thing would have been the hours. It was madness back then, we were in at 5:30/6am and worked until midnight five days a week. Also there was constant stress working under 30 second time limits. Every 30 seconds something else was happening.
Working with Clare was amazing, I learnt so much with regards to flavour, discipline and standards. She was relentless!
She had just taken over from Simone Zanoni, and she was on a mission, everything had to be beyond perfect. I was very fortunate to learn directly from her. I loved and hated it, there wasn’t one day where I didn’t think about leaving, but it was also the most personally fulfilling job. Just to make it to the end of the week was very rewarding. I always felt like I was accomplishing something by working there, it was outstanding.
Working long hours in a Michelin kitchen, did that effect you at all?
For me personally, working those hours was fantastic because the more you work, the more you learn. Obviously now, times have changed. People don’t work like that anymore. Everybody here gets three days off, four days on.
I felt that I was quite fortunate and glad to work those hours, because it gets you where you need to go, faster. Even when I was at Zuma, it was 7 shifts per week, three and a half days off, but I always asked for extra shifts, and ended up working 5 doubles a week because I felt if I was out of the kitchen I would be wasting my time, I wouldn’t be learning.
So for me it was a very rewarding experience, it was very draining and very difficult, but it made me stronger and it got me where I needed to go.
Has the chef shortage affected you at Little Social? Do you think the attitudes of chefs coming straight out of college has changed?
As with anything, there’s some people that come in and want to push themselves, but like I said we try to provide a very good balance between work and life here. So at the end of the day we try our best to make sure everybody has three days off, sometimes if we are understaffed, certain individuals will ask to work. I think it comes down to the individual if they want to work or have the time off.
Moving back and forth from Japanese cuisine to French cuisine, was that an odd shift?
It didn’t seem odd to me at all. I think there are enough similarities that run through all cuisines so they are not like an entirely foreign language. Especially Japanese and French, both are very disciplined and place a massive amount of importance on the quality of produce, and respect for ingredients.
Both have had a very big influence on my style here at Little Social, and I think that is reflected on the menu. You can see a lot of Asian influences running throughout.
What are your plans for the future?
We are very happy at Little Social right now, hopefully we will have some more projects with Jason, and London is my home now so I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. Just try to improve it every single day!
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