Adam Bennett, Head Chef, Simpsons Restaurant

Adam Bennett is the head chef of Simpsons Restaurant in Birmingham which now boasts the much coveted Michelin star accolade. He works under executive head chef, Luke Tipping, but often the workload is shared and Adam is of pivotal importance to the day to day running of the restaurant. Today Adam is beginning to get the credit he deserves after decades of hard graft and honing his talent. Adam prefers contemporary British cuisine and was particularly influenced by the influx of new French cuisine in the 1980’s. We had the pleasure of speaking to him in Edgbaston today. Adam first and foremost fantastic lunch thank you very much, even the guinea fowl dish. My pleasure, a surprise guinea fowl. Yes. Let's talk about, you're head chef here at Simpsons in Birmingham, a very iconic restaurant in Birmingham, talk us through your role, your responsibilities, give us an understanding of the operation, the number of boys in your team, that type of thing? Well the role it's a typical head chef role, where it varies from the ordinary maybe that myself and Luke (Tipping) kind of share the role so day to day, because there are two of us we do get the opportunity to run sections as well as do all the other stuff which is really I think most dream head chef's job. You get to work a section and you can share the other responsibilities with somebody else who you trust. So that's great because obviously I didn't get into the trade to sit in an office and to be able to run sections and stand next to the guys who you're training is great. It's great for me and great for them. How many guys in the team? We run on eight to ten on a service, depending on the business but because we're seven days we look at about 14 on the books, thereabouts. An absolutely full restaurant how many covers can you do? The record is 102. That's just the restaurant? That's the restaurant with the PDR. I was going to say is that private dining as well. But a nice maximum practically is about 95, something like that. Is that an average Saturday night? We're always full Saturday depending if we get even or odd numbers on the tables it can be 80 to 90 plus. Adam how long have you been here? Since we opened here, so coming up to eight years. Since you opened here? Since we opened here yeah. I was also with Andreas at Kenilworth for about two years, so coming up ten years in total, gold watch time. I was going to say you'll get a carriage clock shortly. Okay and in terms of you then you've been here ten years how have you developed as a person, a manager and as a chef whilst under Luke and Andreas? Well I think lots of challenges, have come my way and they have  all helped me progress over  time. I mean whether it be things like outside jobs where we may be cooking, for example, I think one of the most challenging was 350 covers tasting menu at the Ricoh Arena for Heart of England Fine Foods. But that's an extreme example, also doing the National Restauranteurs' Association dinners at the Dorchester. Obviously the challenges that come day to day with every restaurant, all help your development. And  the cooking, enjoying the cooking, the fact that when you've got a kitchen full of people who are enthusiastic and you're getting this great talk, banter and chat going about food - that has a lot of spinoffs that keep the style fresh. Another thing I've learnt working in the Simpsons organisation is how to work in a collaborative way, as opposed to the sort of classic head chef way, "This is the way we do it," dictatorial about every detail, we're a little bit different here at Simpsons, to that because myself or Luke will throw an idea in and either he'll run with one of mine or I'll run with one of his ideas, we don't start with this rigid idea, we start with a basis and then it develops over a couple of weeks and that's an interesting way to work and gives good results. You do have to learn it though because you've got to let go of your pride sometimes and let somebody else run with one of your ideas but it's a good way to work we achieve things with collaberation. What do you think has been your biggest single professional challenge whilst you've been here? As a head chef what's been the biggest learning curve for you? I think learning to work collaboratively. I think that's quite a challenge for a lot of chefs. When you've been working on your own"¦ As opposed to, "It's my recipe, there you go, off you go?" Yeah when you've been the main man previously to work collaboratively is a bit of a challenge to start with but it's a definite positive. You have to open your mind to it? Yeah whichever job I go to next I will definitely take that sort of ethos with me, definitely. Okay and you've got ten or 12 boys in the kitchen how much importance do you place in your role as head chef on training and development of both yourself but also your team? It's vital. I count that as 50% of the job and it's something I enjoy doing as well. When someone comes to us as a raw recruit"¦ Do you have like a structured training or is it more day to day hands on training? No really I think with the experience we've got between myself and Luke we can treat everybody as an individual, so some people need certain things, other people need to be given more time or they need more pressure and I think it's good to treat everybody as an individual and that you can only do by working on the hoof and getting to know them. If you've got a rigid structure not everybody is going to fit into it and we get contradictory things happening here like for example we'll have someone come along with no qualifications at all but with great enthusiasm who might outstrip someone with a good college training. So we can't really be too hard and fast about how we do it. And in terms of resourcing staff then, without stating the glaringly obvious you're not in London, how difficult is it to resource staff of the level that you're looking for in Birmingham. Put it this way we could set up an agency the amount of interest we get. Is that because of your reputation? Well I think what it is as opposed to London where you've got a big well of staff but even more restaurants that want them and they're all fighting over them we've got only a few good restaurants of that ilk"¦ Although it's becoming a lot more now in Birmingham isn't it which is great. Yeah but even so"¦ Still nowhere near London"¦ "¦there's staff for all of us, so anybody who's serious and wants to go to us or Turners or Glynn (Purnell) or maybe Opus and Andy  or Steve at Loves, and the ones who are not serious don't bother us because they know it's going to be hard. And we work very well with University College Birmingham which is a great asset. We help them out with things, they help us out and we get a lot of student placements so we get to cherry pick the good ones, that's always worked well. You're a national restaurant but you're also a local restaurant as  well aren't you and it's very important I guess to be part of the community and work with the local colleges? Definitely it's easy to sit and gripe about colleges but you need to"¦ Which a lot of chefs do. "¦yeah have an input. A lot of chefs moan that there's no chef de partie, well take a commis and train one up then. That's right and we'd rather do that. What we don't really want is a chef de partie who comes along and wants to beat his chest and try and upset the way we do things. We want people who are going to fit into our systems and we can train them into it. You say it's a collaborative way of evolving but in terms of menu writing how much input do you have in that, I mean as you say there's obviously Andreas, there's Luke there's  you. It's pretty much  50/50 me and Luke. If there's a contentious issue maybe Luke will make the call but the ideas come from both of us which is a great way to work. And you obviously work harmoniously because you've been together for quite a time. Yeah I see more of him than I do my wife. Are you a Birmingham fan? No. You're not a Villa fan are you? No I'm neutral. Fine. No I'm from Coventry so we don't talk about football. I just know Luke's a big Blues fan. And is there definitely Luke and Adam dishes or are they Simpson dishes? I think they all become Simpsons' dishes, even a dish that starts out as my idea, I might get the method sorted and put it on, over a period of time the way we present it might evolve, so it's very fluid. To be honest I don't think about it like that. If you are thinking about this is mine, this is his, then you're not really working in a collaborative sort of way. Absolutely yeah. I agree with you. Okay so ten years at Simpsons head chef this great national reputation, local reputation, where are you going next? Where do you want to be in five years time? Where do you hope this career journey that you're in now is going to take you long term? I think going to be the MD of Staff Canteen. I don't think that position's available yet unless you know something I don't. ((laughs)) No I mean my thinking is that"¦I need to be looking for a next step, what that will be is up in the air at the moment. Obviously Andreas has got other business interests is it Steak his"¦ Beef. I beg your pardon I was almost there. So is there an opportunity and I'm not looking for a scoop here or anything like that but are there other opportunities that maybe you could develop into. I know you've been involved in a book but are there other plans to do a Simpsons in Coventry? I'm being hypothetical now. I mean the only thing I could say about it really is that we've always got our eyes open but we're not going to jump into something that's not right so it's not really an answer but it's sort of under development. But would you look at your own business? Possibly but I would need backers. It's a big financial risk isn't it. I would need backers so that's an issue. I do need a next step but the Bocuse d'Or is looming as a possibility. Now if that possibility becomes a definite then everything goes on hold for the duration of that. So that decision will be made shortly by Brian Turner and John Williams. I guess with that to a degree perhaps, and I might be wrong, the structure that you have here may allow you or afford you maybe a little bit more time to dedicate to the competition. Sure. I was just talking to Peter Griffiths there and one of the things we were talking about is why aren't so many of the big hotels supplying chefs for competitions and it's because the brigades are leaner, meaner and keener now and they don't have the numbers to do so. Sure. So that might be an advantage for you. Yeah I think there is we've got enough flexibility at Simpsons which is unusual for our size of restaurant but that's down to Andreas, his philosophy is strength and depth and that gives us flexibility. So should it come off then we should be able to release me to concentrate on it because from what I know about the Bocuse d'Or there's no point in doing it unless you can dedicate yourself to it. It's not something you do part time. Absolutely not. Well I wish you every success with the Bocuse d'Or, every success to continue here at Simpsons and it's great to come and see you again and thank you very, very much. Pleasure.