There's a layer of satisfaction that I get from cooking that is more than the work itself. I think when you're too competitive sometimes you can lose the joy of what you do.

Part of being a great restaurant chef is having an ability to bring all those people together, rather like a captain on a rugby field or a coach. It's also being a great teacher, because I'm only one person in a kitchen of 10 and I need to be able to bring all those people together and to teach them. I need to be able to communicate my thoughts and my process to them.

It depends as there's many different types of chefs, some who cook for awards and others who cook to make their restaurant a great business. There are those who cook for a lifestyle, they'll have come through pubs and they like to have the connection to the farmers and the chickens and the natural produce. So for each chef it'll be slightly different.

There's a layer of satisfaction that I get from cooking that is more than the work itself. I think when you're too competitive sometimes you can lose the joy of what you do.

Some people who see cooking as a job. They got into cooking at some stage and they're sort of ticking along trying to get the money together to buy the car to impress the girlfriend and you know they're doing their job, but some of these people one day, all of a sudden it becomes wonderfully exciting to them. They find this love of what they're doing and they're away.

What often separates the good from the great is a layer of innate ability, a gift, so it's partly that. There's many people with great gifts who don't work hard enough, or perhaps take it for granted, and therefore they don't have the passion and the commitment for it.

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.