He’s the 2023 Great British Menu Champion of Champions and owns three restaurants at the age of just 34. What’s his secret? The chef talks to Kerry Fowler about his eyebrow-raising approach to workplace wellbeing and why black pudding makes everything better
My Food Fight dessert, a winning dish on Great British Menu, was inspired by the comics Beano and The Dandy... not by real life! If I’d done that when I was a kid, my dad would have given me a clip round the ear. I grew up in Dundee, where the comics were created, and there’s a statue of Desperate Dan in the city centre. There are pictures of me and my brothers and sisters climbing on top of him.
I went into hospitality so I didn’t have to go to university. In Scotland university is free, and the idea in our family was that you got your degree, left Dundee and did something with your life. But I was the less bookish one and more on the creative side. I went down the apprenticeship route and ended up – this skinny little boy in his dad’s suit – arriving at the five-star hotel Gleneagles for my very first interview. It was held in the ballroom and I thought, “What the hell, do people live like this?” Everything was so beautiful. I was 15 years old, and I got the job.
I was 18 the first time I ate out. My parents weren’t wealthy at all. Food was about nutrition, staying alive for tomorrow, not about enjoyment – we certainly didn’t go out to eat. The first time was special: I went to The Grill at The Dorchester in London with my girlfriend, me all suited and booted. It was awesome and I was so impressed by the huge Scottish murals on the walls.
I box three times a week and go to the gym even more.
That’s the extent of my unwinding. I’m married to the job – it’s the reason I’m single. My pleasure comes from working on the pass at Frog or Ugly Butterfly, watching all the people in the kitchen making wonderful dishes. They all have to make up a dish before service for the team to eat. It’s our final checkpoint and it inspires them to fight to make it their best.
That’s why I do this job.
When I was about 25, I went to a two-Michelin-star restaurant in London. My girlfriend and I had saved our pennies to go. I don’t remember any of the food, but I do remember how I felt. I hated every moment. We were given the best table because I’d just won a Chef of the Year award, but I was made to feel so rubbish, like I didn’t fit in, because I wasn’t wearing the right clothes. From then, the vision for my own restaurant became all ab
