I train my chefs with a blindfold. I'll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish. The young chef would have to sit down and eat it with a blindfold. If they can't identify the flavor, they shouldn't be cooking the dish.

Making pasta, cooking pasta and baking bread are two essential ideas to create a little bit of excitement, and you learn the basic, and then evolve it. Flavor the bread, flavor the pasta, go to a fish, go to a meat sauce and take it to another level.

Here, in L.A., trust me, there will be fireworks from the canapés right through to the desserts.

First of all, for me the secret is in the ingredients. You don't need to start spending fortunes on organic foods and start becoming way over budget. The better the ingredient, the littler that needs doing to it.

I still love football, though, and I think cooking is like football. It's not a job, it's a passion. When you become good at it, it's a dream job and financially you need never to worry. Ever.

My mum doesn't enjoy sometimes listening to me tell staff off, and I say to my mum, it's a kitchen, not a hair-dressing salon.

The secret is to make sure the business is running to perfection, with or without me.