for a two and three night breaks we very rarely get businesspeople. So people are coming here for a good time they want to be indulged, they want to be looked after and cosseted and they want to have good food on a plate. So that's the clientele.
We get a lot of people from London, the Midlands. North Norfolk is a really popular area as a bolt hole from London or the Midlands, obviously as your reputation gains then it becomes a destination area, and people are coming and I'm finding this more and more and they’ve travelled miles just to come and have dinner and stay over with us, because of the advent of chefs on TV cooking has boomed massively and the interest out there is huge and so that's lovely. It’s fantastic.
Has that helped in terms of your own recruitment?
Richard our Head Chef and I go back a long time. I first employed him straight from college as a 17 year old and he was always a bit of a livewire, I have to say from an employer’s point of view and chef patron, whatever you want to call it, point of view, what you look for in a youngster is enthusiasm, you’re not looking for any particular skills but as long as they’re enthusiastic and want to learn, then you can work with that.
Would you say you can teach them the skills but you can’t teach them enthusiasm?
Absolutely, and Richard had that enthusiasm and he had that, as he went on he had that sort of desire to want to improve himself he moved on to the Waterside and spent several years there, he travelled a bit and then came back to the Waterside, I'd always kept in touch with Richard and he's a Norfolk boy as well and us Norfolk ones we go away and come back as such.
I think most people do eventually don’t they?
Yes and it’s beautiful around here. I had a position going and I put it to him and at the time he was quite young I said, “Look do you want to have the control of the kitchen? Obviously you’re going to have me on your shoulder all the time,” because I still had massive interest then and influence on things, and yes we work brilliantly almost like a father a
nd son.
So 20 years then, great critical acclaim, if you measure it by rosettes and Michelin stars, what does the future hold? What’s round the corner, for you, the property?
Right the beauty of Morston is that we are set in about three acres of land so you can always do a little bit, as I say, and we do try to each year. Last year there was an orangery put on, and it’s not given for more covers it’s just given for more ambience and more comfort. I can put more rooms on if I want to.
So there's always something you can do, you’re not restricted and you haven't reached a plateau where you can’t do any more and that's the beauty of this place and that's probably why I haven't ever looked to do anything else. I’ve got my hands full here. Yes I'm in the kitchen a lot of the time but I'm not necessarily the one getting my hands burnt and stressed out over the stove.
That's a young person’s thing. I've done that. I still think I do it better than most of them, but what owner wouldn’t do? My role is to spread the word and get out to meet people and if somebody wants a cookery demonstration or something like that then I'll do it. That's how I see myself now.
So you've now got the time to work on the business rather than working in the business?
Yeah I'd say so. I'd say definitely that.
And I guess once you’re running a kitchen to a degree sometimes you don’t see much further than your chopping block.
No exactly. For the first few years you don’t see much further than the chopping block it’s eyes down get on with what you’re doing, do it the best that you possibly can but now as I say I have a great team in the kitchen.
Richard obviously from his background is a mixture of absolute classicalness at the Waterside but also mixed with an interest with doing things in a modern way, which works for us.
