Recently in Chef's Revelations Category

What was your best subject at school?
English
 
What was your first job in catering?
Grill chef, the Rock Garden
 
What's your favourite hotel?
The Park hotel, Kenmare
 
What is your favourite drink?
I could just manage a glass of Clos St Hune Riesling, 1983...
 
What is your favourite food/cuisine?
Today, white truffles on fonduta
 
Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Okra and truffle oil
 
Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Who's paying?
 
What flavour combinations do you detest?
Too numerous to mention but chocolate and Marmite comes pretty high
 
What do you always carry with you?
My freedom pass
 
What daily newspaper/website do you read?
Cricinfo
 
Which person in catering have you most admired?
Jesus Christ (5,000 covers with five loaves and two fish)

What was your first job?
Apprentice at the five-star Inn On the Park (now the Four Seasons London Park Lane)
 
What was your first job in catering?
Preparing six crates of spinach
 
What do you normally have for breakfast?
Poached egg, chicken, pink grapefruit
 
What do you do to relax?
Read, listen to music and forage
 
Which is your favourite restaurant?
Pierre Gagnaire, Paris
 
What's your favourite hotel?
Michel Trama in Puymirol
 
What is your favourite drink?
Guinness
 
Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Kiwi fruit
 
What do you always carry with you?
My wits

Which person in catering have you most admired?
Ramon Pajares
 
Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?
Pierre Koffmann
 
Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?
A Laguiole hunting knife

What daily newspaper/website do you read?
The BBC website
 
If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you would be now?
I would either have played cricket or become a money broker
 
If a film was made about your life, who would you get to play you?
With the silver hair it would have to be either Richard Gere or George Clooney
 
When and where was your last holiday?
Michel Bras, Laguiole
 
What irritates you most about the industry?
The bullshit and pomposity
 
When did you last eat a hamburger?
Two years ago at the Chunnel
 
What's your favourite film?
It's a Wonderful Life
 
What's your favourite book?
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
 
What is your favourite prepared product?
Marmite
 
Who would be in your "fantasy" brigade?
Phil Howard, the Square; Pierre Gagnaire, Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire; Glynn Purnell, Purnell's Restaurant; Brett Graham, the Ledbury; and some of my chefs, George Blogg, Le Champignon Sauvage; Sam Miller, Noma; Clive Dixon; Gary Pearce, In de Wulf, Belgium; Lisa Allen, Northcote; Anthony Rush, private household, formally Per Se
 
If you had more time, what you do?
Paint and write more

David Everitt-Matthias is chef-proprietor of the two-Michelin-starred Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham

What do you normally have for breakfast?
Branflakes

What was your best subject at school?
Truancy

What was your first job in catering?
I was the coat-hanging boy at the local pizza restaurant

What do you do to relax?
I don't, I have five kids

Which is your favourite restaurant?
The Starr in Dunmow, Essex

Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Anchovies on pizzas

What is your favourite food/cuisine?
Sunday roast, if I am not making it

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Margarine, because the first place I worked at used it to glaze the vegetables

If not yourself, who would you rather have been?
Ronald MacDonald as he has five stars and is very consistent

Which person in catering have you most admired?
Michel Bras

Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?
Marco Pierre White

If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you'd be now?
After my work experience in the kitchen I knew where I wanted to be

Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?
Debbie, my partner

When and where was your last holiday?
In August in Holland with the kids

What irritates you most about the industry?
Tweezers

What's your favourite book?
White Heat by Marco Pierre White

What is your favourite prepared product?
Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire puddings

Who would be in your fantasy brigade?
Glynn Purnell, Purnell's, on fish; Sat Bains, Restaurant Sat Bains, on larder; Tom Kerridge, Hand and Flowers, on sauce; Marc Veyrat, La Ferme de Mon Père, on garnish; Albert Adrià, El Bulli, on pastry

If you had more time, what would you do?
I would fish more and spend more time with the kids

Daniel Clifford, chef-patron, Midsummer House, Cambridge

What was your first job in catering?
Kitchen porter in a local hotel then promoted to the giddy heights of a YTS chef on £28 a week

What do you normally have for breakfast?
Strong coffee and Dorset Cereals toasted spelt muesli

What do you do to relax?
I go running every day

What is your favourite restaurant?
The Hand & Flowers, Marlow, with Alinea in Chicago close behind

What's your favourite hotel?
I will always have a soft spot for Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, for so many reasons

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Out of season food of any description annoys me as it's just lazy and does not taste of anything

What is your favourite cuisine?
Anything Asian - Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese

Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Processed food of any type 

What flavour combinations do you detest?
Lavender with anything. It's like kissing your granny; it's not right

Which person in catering have you most admired?
I still admire Gordon [Ramsay]; we have not seen anybody quite like him. I know it's not fashionable at the moment to give him any credit, but let's not forget he has helped take our profession to another level in so many ways

Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?
All my head chefs who mentored me on the way up the ladder: Graham Newbold, Simon Haigh, John Burton Race and Raymond Blanc

If not yourself, who would you rather have been?
Lance Armstrong

Tell us a secret...
I have been to see Take That and really enjoyed it!

What irritates you most about the industry?
Low wages for so many people and even hearing the words 'Ready Steady Cook'

Who would be in your fantasy brigade?
Canapes: Heston Blumenthal, cold starters: Marco Pierre White, hot starters: Martin Burge, fish: Tom Kerridge, sauce: Raymond Blanc, pastry: Benoit Blin, running the pass: Will Holland, pot wash: Jamie Oliver

Alan Murchison, chief executive officer, 10 in 8 Fine Dining Group

What was your best subject at school?
Maths - the school head was my teacher and I was scared of her

What was your first job?
Washing up at Redcoats farmhouse hotel and restaurant in Hitchin, Herts. I used to turn up in my chef whites just in case the chefs needed a hand in the kitchen

What do you normally have for breakfast?
Fresh mint tea - it's my only vice

What is your favourite restaurant?
A little buffet restaurant in Sweden, where I love the cured herrings and flatbreads

What is your favourite hotel?
Hotel Madrisa in Gargellen, in the Austrian mountains. It's fantastic for skiing and has its own organic farm

What is your favourite food/cuisine?
British - I'm British through and through, in taste and preference and manner

Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Tomato ketchup

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Okra - it's slimy and flavourless

Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?
A bunch of mint, a kettle and a cup

Which person in catering have you most admired?
Michel Roux

What daily newspaper/website do you read?
BBC news in the morning, and Metro on a Wednesday for its restaurant review

Describe your ultimate nightmare
An epidemic that wipes out the world's mint

When and where was your last holiday?
The Maldives over two years ago

Tell us a secret...
My twins were conceived in the Maldives, hence no more holidays

If not yourself, who would you rather have been?
James Bond - who wouldn't?

When did you last eat a hamburger?
Two weeks ago - they are a guilty pleasure of mine

What is your favourite prepared product?
Marmite

What do you always carry with you?
A bunch of fresh mint

What's your favourite film?
The Italian Job - the original

What's your favourite book?
I'm infatuated and I always have my nose in a book involved in the industry - such as Fast Food Nation and Not on the Label

Tristan Welch, head chef, Launceston Place, London