Keith Marley, chef owner, La Potiniere

After overcoming some initial self-doubts, Keith Marley is now established as one of Britain's finest pastry chefs - his recent Patisserie Chef of the Year award is testament to his decades of hard work and artistry. He currently runs the successful East Lothian-based restaurant La Potiniere with his wife Mary Runciman, who is also a chef. We caught up with him to discuss his early influences, the importance of competitions and why he thinks culinary 'soils' are a waste of time.

What was it that led you into pastry in the first place?

When I left school I didn't really know what I was going to do. And I saw a documentary on a 'day in the life of' – it was six trades and one of them was being a chef. That really took my fancy.

And your career went from there?

I found out there was a position going in a local bakery; went down there and got a position as an apprentice. At the time there was a guy called Cyril Brown – he was the top cake decorator in the country – and I was fascinated watching him work.

I used to sit after hours watching him work. I did three and a half years there working around the bakery. He knew a guy, executive chef Brian Cotterill at Lloyd's of London, they were looking for a young chap to come in and train on the pastry. I tried to talk myself out of it - didn't think I was any good. He didn't listen to me: he said 'I'll tell Brian you're coming up'. So I went up, met Ron Sherman the pastry chef and basically talked myself out of it. Two days later I got a phone call saying I'd got the job! I ended up there seven and half years.

I moved to The Savoy Grill under Pete Stanley for about six months then I went to the RAC club in Pall Mall. From there I went into UBS in the city, seven and a half years there. During that time I'd heard of Bruce Sangster, our veg supplier at the time also dealt with Bruce and he used to come over talking about him.

So I went over and met him, said perhaps one day if a position comes up I'll come and join you. Lo and behold a few months later, a position cropped up. So I had to leave Lehman Brothers and did five and a half years with Bruce.

And Mary?

In 1997, when I was with the Scottish Culinary Team I'd met Mary, and she was doing Female Chef of the Year. And then Mary's Dad informed her that La Potiniere was up for sale. She had a look at it and said to me what do you think? I said yeah let's give it a crack and thirteen years later we're still going strong.

It sounds like you've had some great mentors. Do you try and mentor young pastry chefs?

Well there's only two of us (at La Potiniere) but four or five World Skills candidates come up to me to do a couple of weeks here. They've gone on to do great things as well. It's good to know that I've been part of their career and helped them.

But it's highly important to do that. I love trying to pass on to the younger generation, the apprentices and others, because it doesn't matter what age you are you're going to learn from someone, somewhere all the time. I think if you close that door that you're not going to learn anymore – you're finished. The food nowadays round the world is evolving so much and so quick that you're not going to keep up with everything, but you're going to learn from anyone and everyone.

How has pastry changed since you started out, in terms of what the public expect?

I think, through travelling, people expect quite a bit now. Public perception is hard because people go to France and they'll eat all the French pastries and patisserie and everything. Come back here and they seem to change back to the 'British way'.

So it's quite hard to get people to carry that on. You don't hear much of it unless you're within the pastry world. The public aren't aware, which is a shame because there are a lot of very, very good pastry chefs around now.

You have competed in a number of competitions, I'm thinking especially of the Culinary Olympics. What did that experience involve?

I'd done it with Bruce in 1996, I started off as a back-up