Robert Platts

Robert Platts, joint managing director of Baxter & Platts, reveals all

1. What was your best subject at school?

Biology

2. What was your first job?

Fishmonger's boy

3. What was your first job in catering?

Serving sherry at a school PTA meeting

4. What do you normally have for breakfast?

Whatever is left in the cupboard when my children have finished

5. What do you do to relax?

Go to the gym, fishing, sailing

6. Which is your favourite restaurant?

Sai Yoke, Northfields, Ealing, London

7. What is your favourite drink?

Root beer

8. What ingredient do you hate most?

Raw celery

9. What do you always carry with you?

My time manager

10. How would you best describe your desk?

Somewhere to put my phone and computer

11. Which person in catering have you most admired?

Anton Mosimann

12. Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?

Dennis Lillicrap

13. Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?

20 cases of Linghams chilli sauce

14. What daily newspaper do you read?

The Times

15. If not yourself, who would you rather have been?

Sir John Harvey Jones

16. If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you would be now?

Working as a biochemist

17. Describe your ultimate nightmare?

Being shipwrecked

18. Where was your last holiday?

Sailing in Turkey with my family

19. Tell us a secret…

Business was so slow in the first six months we almost gave up

20. What irritates you most about hotels?

Menus that never change

21. When did you last eat a hamburger?

Last weekend