What are your earliest memories of being interested in food?
Collecting vegetables from my grand fathers garden every Sunday from the age of 6years old and takingthem home to my mother and helping her get them ready for our roast Sunday lunch
What would you say has inspired your cooking the most?
I’m very lucky to have a job that I love, not many people actually find a job that they love so I feel blessed for this
Describe your culinary style…
My style is to try and source the best of a certain product and marry it with a few other items that will help enhance to flavour, try and keep it as simple as possible, work within the seasons and local suppliers where we can
What would you say is the main focus for the restaurant at Fishmore Hall?
Quality.
What do you think had made the restaurant so successful?
I think the restaurant at Fishmore Hall was successful before I got here and there was a good team in place. I would like to hope that with my experience and focus that we can all take it to the next level and to keep growing on that.
If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self, starting out a career in the world of food?
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in this industry but I wouldn’t change anything. the mistakes are what has made me who I am today
This year you took part of National chef of the Year and appeared in BBC2’s Great British Menu, how do you feel about all these recent achievements?
My main focus for doing these out of work competitions is to try and bring more customers to Fishmore Hall which hopefully will give us a larger following and make us even busier, so I don’t fully believe that I have achieved this yet.I have a five year plan for the food offering at Fishmore Hall and we are on track so far.But there is still a lot more to come
Can you give us some of the menu highlights fromthe competitions?
For GBM my whole menu was based around small quality suppliers, and the seasons, I’ve done the same for NCOTY also this is my style and I want to stay true to myself so do what I know.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Custard donuts, milk bottle sweets, trifle.
What restaurant is currently at the top of your list to dine at?
Restaurant Sat Bains.
Fishmore Road
Ludlow
Shropshire
SY8 3DP
+44 1584 875148