Lewis Hamblet is executive chef and food and beverage manager of the Pass and Camellia which both have rosettes in the AA Restaurant Guide and are both based at South Lodge Hotel, which are part of the Exclusive Hotels group.

Lewis began his career washing up in a restaurant at age 13. After training at Bolton Catering College, he worked at the Savoy Grill, where he stayed for two years and worked his way up from commis chef to demi chef de partie. After this he moved from London and took a job at the rural hotel Amberley Castle, but the isolation didn’t suit him. At this point he joined Exclusive Hotels with a demi chef de partie job at The Manor House. He stayed there for six years and worked his way up to senior sous chef. An opportunity came for him to move to South Lodge and he became head chef of the Camelia restaurant. Since then he has risen to his current position.  

Lewis, thank you for inviting me down today, to experience The Young Guns and the excellent concept of the Pass and Camellia here at South Lodge.  A great opportunity to promote young UK Chefs. It's quite strange seeing you in a suit though, tell us about the move out of your whites and into a suit.  Have you adapted?

It's been different, it's very easy for a Chef to hide behind the hotplate, but when you have to meet the customer face-to-face it is very different. As Chefs, we can often simple say "No that's how it should be" and often, we are right, but you can't say that to a paying customer, you really do have to learn to get around that and to start with it's very difficult.

Lewis, I know that, currently, you are doing this split between your role as Executive Chef and Food & Beverage Manager, but what was the thought process behind your desire to move from your whites into a more front of house role? Ultimately I didn't want to be a fifty year old still running around the kitchen.

You've got a few years to go yet Lewis!!!

Yes about twenty"¦"¦(Laughter), but you don't see old Chefs and I didn't want to become one.

Where do old Chefs go?

I'm not sure; there must be a huge room of them somewhere - a Chefs graveyard perhaps, so I decided to make a move to the front of house. I want to make it my responsibility for the food and service. It can be common, when there is a failing in the food, that the restaurant will go "Phew, that's down to the kitchen" and of course visa versa. I think that the food operation should be one team, and we should all share the responsibility, it should be a seamless experience, so if there is a problem, then it becomes our problem and we need to work on closing any gaps between the teams. I've ripped away my security blanket of my whites intentionally to develop myself.

Lewis, you have a stunning kitchen, Exclusive Hotels have really invested in the food business here. The Camellia has a new concept, The Pass is state of the art, you have a structured team in place, and the operations works. Was there a thought to "Kick back" and take it easy?

It is a fantastic kitchen, probably one of the best in the country, I am well set up in terms of team, but that is precisely why I got itchy feet.

So you're still very motivated and want to progress? I worked hard for a number of years to get this kitchen; it took me eight or nine years to get to this.  Business has been good and we got the equipment that we needed, it was a Chefs dream, really.

So often all the money gets spent front of house, with the kitchen tucked away in some broom cupboard under the stairs.

We are front of house, the whole open plan kitchen is very much on display not only for guests that are dining, but we encourage guests to come and see what we are doing, we can only do that with the right kitchen, the right equipment, and the right team.

So with everything in the kitchen set up, you needed a fresh challenge that you could "get stuck into?"

Yes, I never want to leave the kitchen and hang up my whites, well I say never, but never is a long time, but I don't ever see myself completely out of my whites, I want to split the role.

Lewis, you've already mentioned that as a Chef it can be easy to hide behind the uniform"¦ "No because I said no!" Chef mentality, so what has been the most difficult thing to adapt to in your new role?

I think it's the demands and the expectations of the guest when they come to a hotel, such as South Lodge, they form an image and expectation of the dish before it even arrives, different age sets have different views, and it's trying to see things the way the guest does, rather than the way I do, as the Chef. I needed to understand the thought process of their comments and feedback, and when you start to see things through the customers' eyes you do look at your product differently, and question, perhaps why did we change, perhaps we have changed it too much. So empathising with the customer and seeing it from their view point.

You've been at South Lodge a number years as "Chef", how has the front of house team taken to you in your new role?

They now have a direct link to the kitchen, and of course, they have back up.  I've worked really hard with them setting up detailed SOP (Standards of Performance) manuals, they all know the food, they've tasted the food together on the hotplate, they have recipes, they have service images, so I hope for the front of house team, it has been positive. The front of house team still has a Restaurant Manager who is excellent and is new to the team, and two Assistant Managers, so it's not as if I'm in there every day, but they know that they can come and speak with me. I have young Commis Chefs in the kitchen, who will come and