You know, running a restaurant is something you have to be working at each and every day; it's not a foregone conclusion that you're a success.

I am happy for them all: Angela Hartnett, Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing, Mark Sargeant.

Push your limit to the absolute extreme.

Customers should complain more. You know, food's expensive nowadays. And these sommeliers come along with their thousand-page wine list and practically throw it in your lap. They're all businessmen and know that customers get intimidated and buy something overpriced. I say, always put them on the spot. 'You come back to me with a red wine at $30, $40. Come back to me with a choice.'

My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.

Bake some bread. Make a focaccia bread or bake a whole mill loaf. Do something creative, and then put the labor of love into it in the beginning. When you take that bread out of the oven and you eat it an hour- and- a- half, two- hours later, you start to appreciate it more and then you eat less because you worked so hard to make it, you appreciate it in a much better way.

No one saw the recession coming. The UK businesses were solid as a rock, but the issues we had were in Paris, New York and LA. For every pound we were making here we were losing two pounds abroad.