This is wonderful for a young person, no matter what profession they're in. When you can see something and you can feel this attraction to it, then it becomes less of me trying to teach them as they teach themselves. They've got it and bang off they go.

Sometimes someone coming in doesn't have the natural passion for it, but they find it through the coaching or mentoring I give them. I'm sort of opening curtains or blinds and all of a sudden they see it, they get it.

The work element comes into it as well - how much you train and how much work you put into your craft, in the same way a carpenter would perhaps work under a great teacher, etc.

I wrote a mad, passionate letter to the best restaurant in the UK, Le Gavroche in London, and asked if I could work for them. They gave me a job as a dishwasher (Colin laughs). For me that was a joy because I had a foot in the door of this world class restaurant. Just being around the buzz and the pots and pans and the wonderful food and all this produce that was coming in, that was the start of Paul Rankin the chef.

There are many different types of people that end up coming to me and saying 'Yeah I want to cook.' Some of them successful, some not. There's no one formula, but if I get someone coming through the backdoor who knows that they want to get into the cooking field, they feel this inside-out love for it, this attraction to it, that person is an awful lot easier to work with.

A great cook is made from having a great sense of hospitality and trying to make people happy. Then there's natural talent. Perhaps you have a feel for ingredients, the pots, the pans and stoves, that type of thing.

The thing that gave me most pride about it was to see the smiles and the pride on my staff's faces, because a restaurant is a team thing, and for the whole team it's very much that touchy-feely thing that I could have helped them achieve such an award.