How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S7, Ep4 How to Fail: Tom Kerridge

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

This week, the podcast welcomes its first ever Michelin-starred chef. Yes...it's Tom Kerridge! And what a chef he is. He failed at school, but found his way in catering college after the death of his Dad. He climbed the ranks of the profession, working hard and partying harder. Professional success followed, at the same time as personal failure - the long hours triggered a drink problem and he became unhealthily overweight. Faced with his own mortality, he gave up alcohol and went on a fitness regime that resulted in his losing 11 stone. His transformation was so impressive that it inspired a series of bestselling books, the latest of which, Lose Weight and Get Fit, is out now.Tom joins me to talk about his failure at education, his failure in business, his alcoholism and the associated failure to live in the moment. We talk about living to the extremes, having an addictive all-or-nothing mindset, how you can work with your spouse in a stressful industry and stay married, what it means to fail in a high-pressure environment and how he once had ambitions to be a child actor because it meant he got to hang out with the girls from a local private school. What a lovely chap he is - I hope you enjoy! *The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out now in paperback and available to buy here.*Lose Weight and Get Fit by Tom Kerridge is published by Bloomsbury Books and is available to buy here.  *How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabday Tom Kerridge @cheftomkerridge                Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. Tom Kerridge is one of the nation's best-loved chefs, but as a child he had ambitions to be an actor, once appearing in a 1991 Miss Marple Christmas special. Alas, a career on screen wasn't to be, and aged 18, he went to catering college. He went on to climb the ranks of his profession before becoming the chef and joint proprietor, with his wife Beth, of the Hand and Flowers in Marlow, a place which bears the notable distinction of being Britain's only pub with two Michelin stars. Still, Kerridge claims he is not a Michelin star kind of guy. And it's true that his food is as unpretentious and comforting as the man himself. A roasted hog is his signature dish. In his 20s and 30s, he worked hard and partied harder, sometimes sinking up to 15 pints a night. His preferred hangover

cure was two pints of coffee, six Nurofen and then I ate lots of carbs. He put on weight, peaking at 30 stone. But after turning 40 and the birth of his son, Kerridge decided to change his life. Overnight, he cut out all carbs, alcohol, and sugar apart from fruit. He started swimming and lifting weights, eventually losing 11 stone. His transformation was so impressive that it inspired a series of bestselling books, the latest of which, Lose Weight and Get Fit, is out on the very day that we're recording this interview. Happy publication day, Tom Kerridge. Thank you very much. It's a delight to have you on the podcast. You're my first Michelin-starred chef.

Maybe the first of many. Maybe everyone will follow now. Is it fair to say, I mean, I mentioned there in the introduction that you would think sort of 15 points a night, and then when you decided to give that up you did it overnight are you a man of extremes yeah yeah I mean yes I am I like it's one of those and you don't I don't think you realize it or recognize it when you're younger and you're doing stuff and you're getting on with life but I think yeah a hundred percent the more the older you get you more you can reflect on your personality and you realize the personality and the person that you've become and you've built. But yes, everything I do, I do 100%. Like there is no, if I make my mind up to do something, then that's what I do. And then if I do it, I'm going to do it bigger than not everybody else. It's not a competition with anybody, but it's always a competition with myself. If I can do that, then I can do it better and I can do it stronger. I can do it more. I can do it faster. I can do it bigger. I can do it. So yes, everything is pretty extreme in my life. Yeah. I want to come back to that. I should just say that we're recording in your publisher's office in Bloomsbury and there might be the occasional sound of a reception buzzer and

a phone call being taken. But is it, as I put it, you literally did decide overnight to give up all of that stuff? Yeah, well, kind of. I stopped overnight, but I didn't decide to. I worked my way up to it. I knew it was coming. I had to make that decision. And I think when it was such a huge life decision, I'd worked my way into a space where I felt that I needed, I don't regret where I got for a single minute. I don't, because the excess of being a successful chef. And I think you, when you come to interview loads more chefs, you know, from now on, you'll begin to recognize there's a lot of traits that are very similar with them, that we are all creatures of excess and extreme. And some of us vent and release that pressure of being a chef in lots of different ways some of it will be through the gym some guys will do it through

running some guys will do it through drink some guys will do it through drugs some guys will do it through you know there's lots of different I mean the industry is full of people that work to excess and have to have an excessive release form. So running a business, owning a business is pressure enough as it is. I mean, anyone who tells you who runs their own business, no matter what it is, you're under pressure for seven days a week. There's no such thing as a day off when you own your own business, even if you're not necessarily, if you own a shop and it's not open,

it doesn't mean to say that you're not working and under pressure, you know, you're never away from it. So those pressures are huge. But then having those pressures and then pushing a kitchen and pushing a kitchen as hard as you can to get to a level of cooking is also very, very difficult, but amazing. It's incredible. You know, being a chef is phenomenal. I love, I suppose it's the sort of thing that attracted me to it when I was 18 years old, the excessive lifestyle, the energy level, the excitement, the adrenaline that kitchens give you. They're amazing places to be if you're that sort of person.

So having that release form, the harder I pushed, running a business, pushing it, pushing it to cook into two Michelin stars. I was cooking it to two Michelin stars. You drive it. That release was needed. So I don't regret being that person for a single minute. But there comes a point where I recognize that, okay, I've got to a level of cooking. The business has got to a point where I'm not comfortable with the business. I'm never happy with it, never 100% happy with it. But it got to a point where I go, okay, I really now need

to look at my life and I need to make a decision. And 40 years old is one of those points that everyone will talk about that you don't recognize it until you get there, but they are, it is an age of reflection. You do look at going, okay, what have I achieved? Where am I going? What have I done? What's the future? And you never really think about it. You hear it in your twenties and thirties and you think 40, whatever. And then actually when you get there, you go, okay, I really do have to make a decision. My knees hurt a bit more in the morning my back aches i wake up with a headache i got you know just all those getting older things but if you're doing things that are excessive and you're 30 stone and you massively drink heavily hugely every single day there is a you start to recognize that

there may become a breaking point here the drink was a habit and it's a very bad habit that i had and it's an issue it's a problem i don't drink't drink. You know, I can't go near it. You know, I know it will escalate out of control. There's no such thing as a drink, you know, that doesn't exist in my head. I just don't understand it. Why would you just only have one? It just doesn't make sense to me. So I have to stop. It becomes nothing. It's all or nothing. Like everything in my life is all or nothing but then I got to a point where I knew that was coming and I knew that was the only way that I could stop I consider myself strong enough that I don't really need to speak to people I didn't

need help and we're not stupid you're 30 stone you're surrounded by food you drink loads of I can see what I have to do to not be that person so let's make that decision to not be that person it took about three months of knowing that I was getting to that it was January the 6th that I stopped drinking 2013 and I went okay there's lots of things coming up here that throughout Christmas and you know there were big parties with people and friends and there was a New Year's Eve that was probably the last New Year's Eve that I drank, which was amazing. You know, it was just up at Glen Eagle's Hotel with friends. And it was just everything about it was amazing. And I just knew that, you know, six days later, that would be it.

I would not do it again. And it got to the point where I recognised I had to stop. But it was a build-up. It was a three-month build-up of knowing that I'm going to stop. And then overnight, then I didn't drink again. I did fall off the wagon probably three times in the first year but then that was it that was so we're going to come back to drinking because it's one of your failures and I'm really glad that you've chosen to speak about it but I wonder what

it's like to lose the amount of weight that you lost and I know it's not just about weight and your books make that very clear that it's actually lifestyle changes that you can make and accommodate into your everyday life but your transformation has been so dramatic and I wonder if you felt weird about it at all that visually you looked really different no because if you're on a weight loss journey and a life-changing journey and you have to you have to be selfish there is a point of being selfish you have to make those decisions. It's about you. You know, it's very easy. If you worry about what anyone else will think,

or you worry about what you're going to look like, or what, like, they're all so ridiculous thoughts. You have to just go, now this is what I'm doing. I'm becoming very selfish about this. No, I'm not going to go to the pub. No, I'm not going to go and meet my friends. No, I'm not going to go and do this because I can't be that person you have to make yourself a different person so no I look back at it it's quite weird because we found some archive pictures the other day of an

old magazine but it might have been a BBC good food magazine or something where we've done some cooking and whatever and it was in the early years of the hand and flowers relatively early when i was that size and i showed a picture to my son and i went who's that he didn't recognize it it took ages for him to work like he looked at it and it you could see in his face he's going well it looks like my dad but it's like my dad massive like you could see it working out and he and he went dad and like it was almost with a question so I don't recognize really how different I look from that person to this one until you see archive pictures but I think I'm no different inside I'm a different person in terms of like I'm not the party guy anymore like someone else could do that but I'm still the same person I still have the

same excessive work ethic and the excessive life drive and you know I still the lack person I still have the same excessive work ethic and the excessive life drive and you know I still the lack of sleep and the energy spaces that I try to try and cram everything into the day as much as possible I'm still the same person so I don't it's weird I don't see the visual because I'm not looking at me so did you worry about not being and I'm going to put this in quotation marks the fun tom when you gave up drink yeah 100 you do and i think that's something that everybody else will you know who doesn't want to go on the journey maybe everybody else that drinks a lot or and parties and plays and they're the fun bubbly one and the one that's always up for the laugh and

they think if i'm not going to be that person have i lost my personality of course you haven't lost your personality you're just not that person you can't be that but you have to make that decision do you want to be that guy that person for the rest of your life which might not be that much longer or do you want to make a definitive change and change what you're going to do and then see one of the biggest things is telling people around you telling your friends this is what I'm doing this is what I'm going to do and then two of my biggest chef mates both of the two mission stars Sat Baines and Claude Bozzi who are incredible cooks and incredible friends and also like to party the three of us had an amazing time but when I said listen I can't drink anymore it's not, I can't drink anymore. It's not right. I can't do this. They were the most supportive.

We had a big boys trip not long after I decided to not drink, made that decision. And they drank, of course, like, but they were so supportive of me and my decision and to not be that person. And that's why you have to tell people if your friends are going, oh, go on, just one. That's not actually being a friend and then you have to sit back and think of what's their psychology for that why are they asking you to do that and they're asking you to do that because it makes them feel better about themselves because they feel a little bit guilty that they're drinking or they're eating excessively or they're doing whatever you know is it well if they're doing it it's all okay it justifies that you

need to surround yourself by people that are supportive. So when you make that decision, you know, and you cut people and things out of your life because they make you do bad stuff. And I'm quite lucky that it, mine was alcohol. I mean, it could have been drugs. It could have been like, and then, you know, if you think of the people that you could surround yourself by that encourage you to do things that aren't good for you, You have to make those decisions yourself. Your first failure is a failure at education at your GCSEs. And I wonder if you could take us back to childhood. Tom, what were you like as a kid?

Bubbly, outgoing. I've always been comfortable in my own skin, no matter whether I was big. I was quite a big kid as well. I mean, I played sport. I loved playing rugby. I wasn't very good at it at it I mean I come from Gloucester so everyone in Gloucester is like really good at rugby that's it you have to that you're really good at rugby that's it you're bored in Gloucester like my best mate that I went to school with played professional his whole career for Gloucester so I'm comparing myself to people that are however I wasn't very good at but I did enjoy it I enjoyed the social space in it school was great I grew up as a single parent family pretty much my mum and dad split up when I

was 11 but they weren't very much together before that anyway my dad was very ill as well he had MS there was a fractious relationship so I didn't really neither myself and my brother grew up with a father figure so there was my mum provided everything for that she was very good at taking us to the rugby matches or going to that she was amazing she became the all-round complete parent for everything but I'd always been comfortable in my own skin I would be happy you know and I went to school I didn't not I didn't hate school I actually quite enjoyed it I went to an all boys comprehensive school in the middle of kind of like three estates in Gloucester so it was was a bit, my mum called it the school of life. I mean, it was a bit rough and tumble like, but it was great.

I mean, there was a lot of kids there from different backgrounds. It was a big school. There was like over, I think it was about 1,200 pupils, all boys, all from estates. Like you can imagine the kind of place that it was, but it was brilliant. Like it was really good fun there was always things going on huge amount of sport huge amount of banter kids having a laugh and also a lot of naughty boys there now I was always hanging around with the kind of like semi-cool naughty boys but I wasn't the naughtiest and I wasn't the coolest I was just kind of like one of those guys that hang around and was there. Never really in trouble, but never excelling at anything.

I never bought into the education system. I never bought into sitting down and reading books and writing about stuff. It just didn't work for me. It just didn't sit in my head as something that... I look back at it now and I think probably from an early age, it made me think that I couldn't see how that related to anything that I wanted to do in life because the only jobs that I could ever see people do where they sit down and write stuff are people that sit in an office like in 1984 you look at people who write stuff I couldn't ever see myself wanting to be in a job

where I have to wear a suit and sit in an office. I just, I couldn't relate to it at all. So education, I just switched off from. But I also didn't see myself being a builder or a carpenter and I couldn't work out what it was I was going to do. But I never feared that I wasn't going to be able to find something. I always thought, I'll be all right. I'm not quite sure what it is I'm gonna do but the education thing really didn't click in for me but I did love going to school I loved having a laugh I did love the social hanging around with the kids but I love going to school and then skiving off like go in sign a register and then go up the park and smoke cigarettes and just be a massive idiot like that kind of social aspect again yeah

again hanging out and doing stuff but not writing and learning no no no peyton it's happening we're finally being recognized for being very online it's about damn time i mean it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's

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Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real life history that inspires the

locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. What did your parents do? So my mum worked for the education department. She was a secretary at the education department. And then she also had a couple of jobs in the evening. She would work in a pub washing up. That's my mum and dad split up. My dad was a lecturer at the art college before he became very very ill

so he was a graphic designer and a lecturer at the local art college but they kind of split up and then he stopped work his illness was too big and when they separated it was so they separated when i was 11 and then yeah so that was it so we would probably see him maybe once a week on a friday evening we'd pop over there and go and see him but as so that was it. So we would probably see him maybe once a week on a Friday evening. We would pop over there and go and see him. But as he got progressively worse, I mean, we still saw him. We still went over to see him. But it got to the point where he almost didn't recognise us

and his illness became really bad. And he ended up, his last few years were in a home where he was just bedridden. He was almost a non-human, which really sad really sad so sorry it's weird I kind of grew up with it so it's not I mean yeah you look back at it and you go yeah it sounds like a really sad childhood except it wasn't it was an amazing childhood like me and my brother were relatively close we're close now we're very different characters we're very different people but we were always good friends and when my mum and dad were together, my dad wasn't there very often.

My dad was away being my dad, doing whatever he was doing. My mum was always the figurehead of the family for us as kids. So when my mum and dad split up, it didn't feel weird. It wasn't like taking 50% of something away because that person really wasn't there a lot in the first place. And then, yeah, it's very sad when you see somebody very ill but there wasn't like necessarily a father-son connection there that became that was broken so it's sad that someone's very ill and then they pass away but it wasn't as heart-wrenching a story as you could make it sound how old were you when your father

died I was 18 okay yeah and by that, you'd failed your GCSEs? Yeah, pretty much. I came away with, I got four of them. I got four GCSEs. And I just wasn't interested in, I couldn't be bothered to write things down, read stuff. I had no understanding. I had no desire to go on to further education. And don't get me wrong, I get the reasoning now. I look back at it and go, okay, so what you're trying to prove is that you can process information, take it in, and then repeat it and have an understanding of it, and then maybe even put your own spin on it.

need to learn about rock forms somewhere in Chile in a geography lesson. I mean, that is never going to affect anything that I'm going to do. Even though I didn't know what I was going to do, I knew I wasn't going to be someone who goes to Chile and looks at rocks. So it was kind of like, you know, physics, the science of it, or like languages, just none of it made sense for me to what I was going to do. So I kind of almost switched off from it. And when it came to the exam days, I pretty much just turned up. Like I went there and I did them and then I went away again, not really worrying about what I was going to get. But I also didn't know what I was going to do.

But I also wasn't worried. Not once did I think, I've really got to get these exams. And not once did I think, if I don't get these exams, this is all over. I just knew I would be all right. I just knew something would find me or I'd find it. it's quite interesting that because it sounds like you didn't feel it was that much of a failure it's not now yeah it's not now it's not now but at that point because there were people that were getting great exam results and going on and doing a levels and doing and it felt like maybe that's what I should have been doing.

Did you feel labelled? Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. Like I was lost. Between the ages of 16 and 18, completely, my mum calls in my dossiers because I kind of like didn't do it. I was supposed to be on a YTS scheme that I kind of didn't bother going to either

because that wasn't, none of it fitted because you couldn't claim benefits as a 16-year-old. And I didn't know what job I wanted. I didn't go into higher education. So I was still trying to find myself about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. Without the education, without the backup, there was no definitive path of which way to head down.

I kind of look back at it. It's funny because I spoke to my mum about it. My niece has just done her 11 plus, or if that's what it's called now, I'm not really sure. I did the 11 plus. Yeah, yeah. We're the same generation. Yeah, so I did my 11 plus.

I didn't know this, but I recognise it now and I look back at it and I go, you know, I know I'm not stupid. I know I have an understanding. I've got a worldly understanding. I mean, I've won Celebrity Mastermind. I mean, come on.

That's amazing. Wait, what was your specialist subject oasis the the back yeah so oasis and then which was all right like it wasn't that was the general knowledge that I smashed it on that was the bit it was it made up for all the lack of education because in that week I won celebrity mastermind and I got an honorary doctorate in philosophy from Gloucestershire College so it was kind of like my mum suddenly became super proud but the education thing was I knew I wasn't stupid so the 11 plus my niece has just taken it and she's done very well and but and I was saying to my mum oh that was amazing she's done she's done great that's fantastic

my mum said oh yeah well you passed it as well. What do you mean I passed my level? So I could have gone to more of an academic-driven education from a grammar school. I said to my mum, so I could have gone to Crypt, which was the school, the grammar school there. And she went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you could have gone there. And her follow-up sentence to that was,

yeah, but you'd have never have coped. I was like, oh, thank and that's because my mindset wasn't one of i want to sit in this classroom with a load of people and listen and learn it just wasn't ever there so i think i could have that i could have gone there if i had the right mindset to it i could have gone there i could have got gcses i could have got a levels i could have gone on to university I know I could have because if I put my mind to something I know I can do it however it's only if I want to and I really couldn't be arsed to do it that's so interesting that your desire is such a strong motivating force like if you desire something you can do it like that yes so what brought you then to catering college had you always loved food I mean the 1980s were not a key food era no I'm a finder's crispy pancake kind of

guy yeah yeah yeah birds eye potato waffles finder's crispy pancake yeah yeah yeah tinned raviolis honestly that's the stuff that like yeah so that's what I grew up with that that's the food that you know that those years of convenience food that I mean a lot of my menus still now are based on a chicken Kiev but we just do it really well those sort of things but it wasn't a desire of food actually it wasn't the food that I mean I've always loved food but it was the industry that I fell in love with I mean like you say the beginning bit I was an actor that kind of happened not by accident but it was something that I joined a youth theatre with my friend Neil my mum took us over to Cheltenham Everyman Theatre and it was amazing it was brilliant I'd always been comfortable in my own skin like I say so going out on stage or

learning lines or it was great it was then that was the first real experience of actually hanging out with girls as well it was an allboys comprehensive school that I went to, you know, and it was quite alpha male-y. There was always a fight. So actually then going to a youth theatre and hanging out with girls, it was getting out into the world, which was great. You know, there were a lot of girls there from Cheltenham's Ladies' College and it turns out that 16-year-old girls from Cheltenham Ladies' College quite like a couple of boys from an estate in Gloucester.

You know, it's kind of like the youth theatre was amazing, but it was really good fun. An agent came to see somebody in a show and they really liked her and took her on. And would I go in? And I was like, yeah, of course I'll go in the books. Sure. No problem. And then literally two weeks after that, I was filming that Christmas special in Miss Marple. It was kind of all a weird, it wasn't weird, but it was great. So I just said yes to it I was like yeah that'd be great yeah why not I mean I'm not doing anything else so let's just do it but then the world don't get me wrong I think acting I think movies I think some films just blow you away and some performances are incredible but I couldn't as a career I found it very weird for me as a personal choice to make money pretending to be somebody else.

Like I see it as if it's your profession, I get it. But then for me, it was just like, this is, it's not for me. This isn't my world. It's not, I'm not comfortable in this space. This isn't, I enjoyed like doing things like the practicality of doing stuff is really cool. enjoyed doing things. The practicality of doing stuff is really cool. So all of a sudden, I found myself going, I'm actually doing stuff that isn't sat in a classroom or about learning. I'm learning things. I'm being with people. I'm understanding a process. That I really,

really enjoyed. But I needed money. And so I went into a kitchen as an 18-year-old. It wasn't to be a chef wash up so I walked in the kitchen thinking oh I need to earn a bit of cash I'll do this and pretty much instantly the space grabbed me the people the energy the vibe that it wasn't about the food it was about what's going on what's happening the noises from the kitchen the sounds the banter the pretty waitresses the just all the things that it was life it was really bubbly and active and great and good fun and then when the chefs had finished they'd clean down and then they'd all go for a beer and all this I just thought I want this life this is amazing this is brilliant it's great and you know when you're getting in at midnight you know and it's like I've just finished work and all your mates are finishing work at five and then going, you know, it's like, that sounds fine, but it

sounds so dull. Like all of a sudden it was something that was, this is really left field and a real sense of energy and people that you meet that work in the hospitality industry are brilliant. It is like the best way I describe my kitchen or any kitchen that i've ever worked in is like being on a pirate ship you know it's relatively disciplined there is a point of where they're going and what it's going to achieve but the people are on it as such an eclectic mix from all over the world from all sorts of different backgrounds from all sorts so all of a sudden i come from this 1200 all boys in the school that were pretty much all the same sort of background right it was quite culturally diverse but still the same sort of kids to all of a sudden different age groups different people

different things like for example one of my head chefs that runs the coach for us is you know he's got a degree in forensic science but then there's kids that are working there some that completely flunked all of their like didn't even bother going to school you know i've worked with people that can't read and write in my time so that the whole energy level but everyone's cooking for the same reason everyone's in that thing so all of a sudden this energy of this space grabbed me as an 18 year old and that was it I knew then this is where I'm going this is what I want to be in did I want to be a chef did I want to work in the hotel as a hotelier did I want to be a restaurant manager I didn't really know until probably about two or three months of being there and then it was no

this is the kitchen this is the activity this is the beating heart of pretty much every f&b operation food and beverage operation it's this is where it is this is the coolest bit this you'd become captain of your own pirate ship i love it exactly exactly so after catering college you got into the industry and you are now phenomenally successful but it wasn't always like that and your second failure is failure at business you opened a bar in Marlowe about nine or ten years ago yeah and it didn't succeed so tell us about that and why you chose it I mean business was always very very difficult you you go from being a chef and then opening your own business and it's very you go from them being an employee where you know how much you earn and you know how much you can pay

rent or what you can do, whatever, like to be an employer and you have no recollection of how money you're going to get. You've got no idea what's coming, what's around the corner. You are fully in charge of your own destiny. And that is quite a, it's frightening and daunting, but it's also amazing. I mean, again, you're, you're in charge of what's going on. Like you can only make money, you can lose money. You have to have a sense of ownership and credibility in why you're doing it. Everything that we always do is always built on the foundation of people, relationships. None of it is to do with making profit. Businesses have to make profit. People think profit is a dirty word. Profit is

not a dirty word. You have to make profit so that you can reinvest. That's it. Things break. Stuff needs doing. Things need redecorating. People need pay rises and jobs. You need expansion and growth. And you can't just sit stagnant and still. You need to make a profit. Profit is not a bad thing. Excessive profit being made at the expense of the standard or the reason why you operate in the first place isn't good but to make profit with the heart and values that you open up with in the first place you're never going to make absolute loads of money from being in the hospitality industry but if you can set your store like with credibility and make sure that people get paid properly and everything and you have a standard that's very good people become they tie into the business and you know they grow with it

and become part of it and then you can adapt on that but in 2008 i mean the recession hit it was very bad we made a decision that we wanted to grow and how we i mean i went from being a chef to being a chef baker i mean we we needed to make me and beth had no money the business is on its knee yeah beth's my wife yeah so we we had no money the business was just about operating we were trying to keep it as busy as possible but i would work on a friday morning i would come into work at 7 7 30 and work all the way through till friday night then friday night about midnight the kitchen would be cleaned down then i would set up and I'd make bread all night long probably about 300 loaves and then Beth would come in at about eight o'clock on the Saturday morning 7.30, 8 o'clock Saturday morning

set up a little stall in Marlow High Street sell all the bread and then I like I would then just work all from because it's 7.30, 8 o'clock Saturday morning so then I work all the way through to the end of Saturday night so that money that 48 hour I work all the way through to the end of Saturday night. So that money... It's like a 48-hour shift. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then at the end of that Saturday, I'd definitely go to the pub till late, till about two or three. Weekends were quite excessive.

But that money that Beth made from selling the bread on the high street, that was our wages. That would pay us and we'd try and do that once a week. And everything was trying to stay afloat. And then this opportunity came to open a small bar around the corner that had an amazing reputation it was brilliant it was really busy and buzzy is a great drinking place and a good fun bar and the owners were leaving and the brewery that owned it approached us and said would we like to have a little look at it and we decided to do it and we decided to do it with business partners to take on this bar space and do small

little tasting things of food that were quite simple that some of the prep work would be done at the hand of flowers and we take it down the road and it would be small portions of chips and just lots of little pots and ideas of potted salmon just very simple bar food but my focus was always on the hand of flowers and at that point i was just competing in the first great british menu so it would have been 2009 so we got to this point where i'm not in this new business i'm running the hand of flowers and i'm done but the chefs are trying to create the food for it and it's very very simple a very very simple offering but the business partners that we went into business with did not have the same work ethic as myself and

Beth and it wasn't in some ways they were looking at being carried and a business can't work like that you have to be 100% committed to it you have to make those right decisions you have to and it didn't work the energy levels weren't right it caused resentment to how much work they were putting in that I you know we were doing it and it was operating because it was operating off the back of the success of the hand of flowers and at that point filming television and being in great british menu those sort of things start making a big difference to business but that business wasn't working because when we weren't there it was being run with a lethargy with a with it yeah not in a way you would run it

exactly that was a huge learning curve probably one of the biggest for us because at that point it costs about 20 grand in failure which is a lot of money as particularly as you're in the recession and it's particularly baking bread i know it's huge yeah exactly it's huge so it costs a lot of money i mean in the grand scheme of things over over years of turnover, that's not a huge amount. However, for a husband and wife team, a small family, that's a huge amount. with people that weren't necessarily have the same, they weren't bad people, they just didn't have the same work ethic. And it showed us that if you're going to go into business with people in the future, and you're going to do joint ventures and build it, they have to have the same mindset. That learning curve was very, very steep. Did you feel like a failure after that business failed? Yes, because I couldn't give it 100%. It was one

of those things as well about delegation. Now, we've built now hugely successful hospitality businesses on allowing people to grow professionally and personally. And over those 10 years since opening that to this, there's members of staff that have been with us from the beginning that have seen the journey. So they've now become senior management they take ownership of the business it's theirs what they create we all create it together but they they have a sense of ownership and belief and one of the biggest things that you know winning two mission stars is amazing there's so many different things i could look back and go oh this was incredible that was amazing but one of the biggest things that both me and beth are so proud of is that the staff that have stayed with us and been with us for so long

and there are so many of them that have been with us over 10 years and people that are coming up to 10 years seven eight nine years you know people that just don't move because they have a sense of ownership we allow them to grow professionally and personally and that's really important that understanding of being able to delegate to be able to grow is huge so that sense of failure with this first bar because I couldn't delegate it properly and I couldn't understand not having ownership or having somebody else that has ownership of it but not owning it the same that I would you know all of those sort of things it did feel quite uncomfortable it was an uncomfortable space to be because it made me realize in retrospect I look back at it and there were huge learning curves about allowing an

understanding of characters that you build around you people that come with you on the journey is very very important so from a learning curve i learned so much from that small the other way that i look at it i talk about that 20 grand and you go at 20 grand is cost a huge then at that point feels like a lot of money however now i look at it and go that 20 grand is cost a huge, then at that point feels like a lot of money. However, now I look at it and go, that 20 grand is nothing. That 20 grand is worth every single penny as learning curve. I love that. You go, it's an investment in learning.

It's an investment in learning. You've spent 20 grand going on a crash course in failure. And you go, okay, so I've learned this. So you could sit back and go, I'm never doing that again. Or you can go, all right right now if I'm going to do that I've got to do it like this this and this to make it successful you know and now a second pub down the road with a mission star a butchers a major London restaurant and a new Manchester opening and an events team and a festival business and you go I've learned that 20 you're taking it easy now Tom yeah in your 40s you just yeah yeah yeah life is yeah I hang out you know I have three or four days hanging on the river

fishing like but talking about the people that you choose to work with Beth yes clearly your wife who sounds absolutely amazing from the way that you talk about her is one of those key people the key person yeah what has it been like for your relationship amazing now I couldn't recommend it enough working with your partner in terms of what you get out of it when you get to the other side it starts off very very difficult because the nature of the industry best an artist okay so she went to liverpool john moore's university then she went to the royal college of art then she spent 10 years working alongside sir anthony caro as one of his chief technicians she's a bronze caster and carves in marble and she's a phenomenal artist that's now you know

she won the world art award for sculpture two years ago in dubai she's a phenomenal artist that's now you know she won the world art award for sculpture two years ago in Dubai she's a renowned artist of her own standing but at that point when we opened the hand of flowers she said to make a business work the point of the hand of flowers so that is Beth could make uncompromised art and I could cook and that was it there was never about making money or profit or just so that Beth could be an artist and I could be a chef. It's as simple as that. But that gets taken away. That dream, that vision is rapidly destroyed when you open a business because there is nothing fun about opening a restaurant. Like it's fun for three days, the excitement and the energy of getting it ready and all those sort of things. And then you open the doors and then it starts becoming difficult.

Then the VAT bill comes in and then the staff pay, you know, and then the staff don't turn up. And then the pressures of running a business are massive. So if you were running the business as a head chef and a restaurant manager, that's under pressure, okay? And then you have conversations where you have to work together and you also have conversations

where you battle each other. But then if that husband and wife thing is brought into being restaurant manager head chef it suddenly becomes very difficult because how are you talking to each other in front of members of staff now when we first opened there was only a few people there not many now across board there's about 260 but the original time in land of flowers was about three so as it grows that strain on the relationship is huge and it's very very difficult to find that balance between who you are as a couple and who you are as business partners who you are as your supposed roles and jobs within that business and they're all very very difficult things to try and find and settle with.

But when you work together at it, you become incredibly strong because you come through adversity. It's not, I mean, is it adversity? It's just a life journey that then you recognize and you grow and we're very lucky because you now have gone all that hard work, energy, effort is now the other side. I mean, it's 14, 15 years later, but Beth has a beautiful big studio

at home where she's making her own work that is uncompromised. Beth still is in the business. Beth runs the account and make sure that the money's fine and that people are getting sorted and that everyone's all right and has a vision of how she wants the business to be, how she wants it to feel. So she's very much in it because she loves it very much, but she is removed from it, the day-to-day running of it, the understanding of who writing, like it doesn't, Beth has no interest in that.

She makes art, she is an artist. So she's still in it, but she's got a great studio. She makes art with material that she wants to make. She has a space where she wants to be. But it's been very difficult to get to that point. But now we're at that point, you'd never change anything. We're so lucky. We haven't had an argument for five or six years.

We're now in a position where it's different does coincide a little bit with i haven't drunk for five or six years so you go okay you've got a young son now haven't you we have got a young son yeah yeah yeah we do i mean we occasionally have a little bit of an argument about ac only because like i say yes to stuff and that beth said no to you know like standard normal parenting, but not arguing. We haven't. We don't. We don't argue now. We're in a point where we're very comfortable and very happy where we are. But it's been it's been a real hard push to get.

Yeah, I guess you've been forced to communicate. That's that's what it's done. But talking about the fact that not having an argument coincides with not having had a drink brings us back to where we started and actually onto your third failure which is you put it failure at drinking or just being very good at drinking which has led to the issue of failing to live in the moment which i think is really interesting yeah 100 how much was beth a part of you giving up drink i mean how tough did it get? Would you have labelled yourself as an addict?

Yes, yeah, 100%. But controlled. So I wouldn't drink throughout the day. It would always be in the evening as soon as service had finished. Work was profession. So when I walked through the door at 6.30, 7 o'clock in the morning or 8 o'clock in the morning, I wouldn't drink until until service had finished so it doesn't give you long to drink however from 11 o'clock through till six or seven in the morning you still got plenty in my head that's plenty of time the only thing you were

going to miss out on sleep so drink had become hugely excessive and massive in my life and it was always about volume i had no interest really in. Like even as a chef that loves food, wine, I like the process of it. I like the fact that people create and make. I love it. It's amazing. But that's why I have a lot of respect for brewers as well because brewers are often not seen in the same light

as great winemakers. And I know the winemaker is a little different because they are taking the vines and it's affected by it. But they still have the same passion and soul and they're still creating something that is an organic base root of something that can be manipulated and grown. It's not a chemical process. It's just added together. Like it's something that is alive and something that moves. I love the way that you are taking a question about alcoholism and being really lovely to the people who create booze. I just think that's just like the loveliest. You're just such a nice man.

I mean, they have a passion for something that they do. What that does, my choice of what they do to me and my psychology, my body, my mindset isn't their fault. There's hundreds of thousands of millions of people around the world that can just enjoy a glass of wine or a single pint of beer and enjoy it for what it is. I can't because I'm not that person. But I do love their passion for how they make it. They're in the food and drink business. I'm in that industry. They make things the same as people who make cheese or the same but you know

bakers you know there's a passion and a soul and they're taking something from the earth and they're creating something and they're making it and what that does to your mindset after you've drunk it isn't their fault that's there to make you enjoy it. There's plenty of people that can just have a glass of wine. I can't. What they do, that creativity, that passion, is something that is, I mean, it's amazing. It's something to get it. But the wine itself was something,

I wasn't really interested in the flavour profiles. It wasn't really something that you could do excessively. I mean, you can, but for me, it was always about volume and volume of pints of beer or spirits, hard, something that's really big, strong kicks, powerful, those sort of things, that instant, almost like drug taking gratification. I love it. I loved it. I love, I love it now. I know I would love it now. I mean, I got to a point where I stopped drinking. I probably stopped drinking.

It was about a year, maybe 18 months into not drinking. And it was a Saturday evening at the Hand of Flowers and I'd just finished. It was about 9.30 actually. And there was a few tables left to come, but I text Beth and said, listen, do you want to go for a quick drink in town in Timarlo?

She was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. What a great idea. So I picked her up and we just bobbed into town best still drinks now but not massively but she'll have a really nice glass of red or really lovely gin and tonic or whatever like it's no but we went into a bar and she had a glass of wine or a gin and tonic or something and there was a non-alcoholic beer there and I thought do you know what maybe I'll have a bottle of that and I had one the moment that I had it the mindset of what it was the psychology of what it is the smell the flavor the fizz the cold the way that it hits your throat everything about it I did eight

of them in 20 minutes it was uncontrollable non-alcoholic beer i was getting i was getting excessive on non-alcoholic and that was it from that i was just like that is ridiculous that is just not right now i'm quite lucky i've got a great friend who is freely talked about his issues with alcohol and drugs and lives nearby with russell brand so russell is he lives near us and he's such a lovely man and a great friend and is such a huge supporter of what we do and me of Russell. And we were talking about it and the issues with it. And when I was telling him this story, he said, you know, normal people just don't do that.

And that was the point where I thought, you know, if Russell is telling me that, I'm going, yeah, yeah, okay, there is an issue here. There really is. There is a thing that I just go I can't so I have to you have to move yourself away from it but what I recognize that and where it is a failure in a huge rate now I was very good at drinking like if there was an olympics for drinking I would be in it I would be great Britain's gold medalist I would be like sir Steve Redgrave of drinking but when it came to now the

failure in it and I don't I miss it I miss that guy I miss that party I miss that edge I miss that not caring about anything else because it's just about me in that moment and that I don't have anymore so living in the moment now I'm always I always feel that I'm supposed to be somewhere else. I always feel that time sat doing nothing, watching TV or something. I can be achieving something else. Why am I here? I've got three restaurants, four restaurants going on. Surely I should be.

There's something else I should be doing. What email should I be sending? Relentlessly, that is always in my life. Even when you're exercising sorry to interrupt but is that yes and no some yes yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in a while actually because I've opened a restaurant in Manchester I'm there all the time and I had an opportunity to go to the gym and I couldn't normally I would set myself two hours aside to be in the gym i was in

and out in 40 minutes because i wasn't i couldn't switch off from being other things normally i can go okay my day is structured i've got two hours here now i can switch off for two hours and i can zone into being with the personal trainer and then i view it as a job as well that i do it's my job to be fitter stronger healthier for my son like that's it so you go right so this is so it becomes a job that's why I'm doing it but then I can switch off from everything else because I'm still focusing on that being the job in hand yesterday wasn't I do I wasn't with the personal trainer I was on my own and I my mind doesn't stop about everything else so there's so many other things I've got. There's so many other things all the time.

When you have that many businesses, it's saying it's great and it's brilliant. I love having so many opportunities that are presented. I'm so lucky, but there's always something, somewhere going wrong, somewhere in one of them that something needs resolving or problem solving or talking to or a member of staff needs an arm around them or, you know, all of those sort of staff needs an arm around them or,

you know, all of those, there's always something. So that is always in my head. Now with alcohol, when I was drinking, none of that occurred. Not a single bit of it mattered because I was drinking and I drink for me. That moment, there it is. That's living in that moment right now. that moment there is that's living in that moment right now life is amazing i'm watching a band i'm drinking beer i'm doing whatever like i'm having dinner i'm doing like right there and then it's incredible i've taken the alcohol out of my life and i not for a single minute do i ever live in the moment and it drives my wife absolutely mental i find it very difficult to go to be content right now and I and it's weird because I should be because like everything's great but then I think when you're telling yourself you should be content that makes it so much harder as well like yeah I would just ease

up on yourself and my personal perspective from a position of complete ignorance yeah is that you're taking time to acclimatize like you managed to quit overnight more or less yeah and so it's bound to take a bit of time for it all to settle and actually the worst thing you could do is beat yourself up about the fact that you're not doing it but do you get support do you follow a 12-step program or or you've just you're just on your own yeah just on my own i like yeah yeah, no 12 steps. I mean, I've talked about that with Russell, funnily enough, but it's not for me.

I like doing it on my own. I like finding my own way. I like, yes, guidance is sometimes quite good or somebody who's been through the experience of pointing something out and showing you, oh, well, I've done it like this. I like to elicit. I've always found my own way to finding to the point where i'm at now you know we've done all right finding my own way and i can find my own

way here but i do recognize now that this is another issue that i have in my life is not living in the moment but do you know what it's a way less worrying one than drinking 20 cans of stella do you know what i mean it's kind of like it's actually I can find. And there's little moments and so much of it actually comes through my son. There's little moments. And I need to spend more time with him. I recognize that. But at the same point, you're building businesses and showing him.

A father-son relationship is something that I never had. I've got no experience of what that should be. And we're finding that out as we go along. We're on this journey together. We're finding our father-son relationship as we build it together. And it's great. It's an amazing journey.

And there are little moments that I go, right now, it's amazing. So we went to see The Lion King a week or so ago. I didn't really watch The Lion King. I didn't see what was going on on the stage, I mean I did but I spent most of it watching him watch it

and that's the point that you go actually this is amazing, this is great I live in the moment then and I'm living in the moment through him and what he does but I don't live in the moment through I haven't got a point where I go right now this interview I go no this now, this interview,

I go, no, this is great. This is great. This is great. But I know that I've got this. In my head, I'm going, I've got a deal of something that's come through on an email that I've got a response. There's always something. There's always something. My next challenge will be finding the balance in where I can go,

okay, this is, I'm in a much better space, but I'm not quite there yet. God, that made me well up. I'm going to let you go because you've got a thousand and one things to do. I'm not going to be like the millionth person to say, you should try meditation. I refuse to be that person. Do you know what? My wife sent me once for acupuncture because she swears by it and loves it and I made a huge difference to her for lots of different things for medical reasons and all sorts of different stuff so I agreed to go in and I went and it works right and it works and I came away from it three hours after I had it I was in a completely slightly zoned out relaxed space and I hated it I couldn't

bear it because I had other stuff to do I had things to get on with and my brain couldn't switch in to dealing with the other stuff so that even like that even made me go well I know it works and I was really relaxed and I hated every minute of it because I had other things to do. So it drove... That's fascinating. A dear friend of mine identified herself as a chaos addict, as someone who needed that to be motivated and driven and actually weirdly sort of fed off chaos. Yeah.

I finished service in Manchester at 11 o'clock two nights ago and I drove back from Manchester to Marlowe. I was in home by 2 30 ish you know cup of tea said hello to the dogs in bed by three up again at 6 30 when little man comes in and it's like for me it's that's that's exciting I'm living a life I'm living a life I'm doing stuff I wish I could enjoy it more but I am loving every minute of living a life. Does that kind of make sense? It makes total sense. And you're living the life, I guess, that, as you so eloquently said, your dad didn't live.

Yeah. Like, you're learning how to be a dad and you're alive. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That is very true. That is very true. You know, we all have to take responsibility for what we do and what we put in our bodies

and what we decide to do and how we get there and at the end of the day it does come down to what you want out of life and I suppose it comes back to my mum and the first thing she said which is why I was never worried about the education which I was never worried about and and my mum never pushed me for doing exams or doing because I think she probably always knew and she always said to me you'll always get out of life what you put into it you know if you give 100 it will give it back and she said whatever you do just make sure you do it to the best that you can and so I always question is that the best I can do it and that's how we've got to win in two mission stars at the hand of flowers that's how we've got to push into the business because is

that the best you can do it no that isn't the best we can do it we can do it better let's do it better tomorrow let's do it better now let's do it better just question yourself all the time is that the best you can do it and I put that into everything that I do in life everything that I do Tom Kerridge you've put everything into this interview it's the best possible how to fail interview you could have given I cannot thank you enough for coming on the podcast thank you ever so much for having me it was a lovely way to start the day. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.