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.

You don't come into cooking to get rich.

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it's too assertive to the naked eye.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.