What Inspired You

We recently asked our agency chef team, what inspired them to become a chef. Here is a selection of our favourite answers:

• Keith Floyd made it look fun whilst getting paid to do it. ~ Adrian
• I was very much into sports as a child and only thought about football, football and more football. My home economics teacher spotted I had natural flair and set up a work placement in a catering college. I loved it and the rest is history. ~ Aaron
  
  
• When I was younger I did cookery to get in with the girls and actually ended up being good and enjoying it so my mum encouraged me to carry on. ~ David
• I wanted to leave school at 15, you could back in those black and white days and my dad said I should go to college to learn a trade, the only vacancies at college were catering and photography, I chose the first and the rest is history. ~ Richard
• My first job in catering was as a KP at 16 in early 80s, I had never been in a restaurant before that. Beef Stroganoff was on the menu (very popular dish back then) on tasting it, something wonderful happened. I felt quite emotional. It changed my life and from that moment I had a new obsession which hasn’t quite gone away, 30 odd years later. ~ John
• I joined the army catering corp and became a combat chef I did 10 years and served all over the world. ~ Stuart
• I was inspired by my older brother Keith who was a chef and traveled the world, so after I got out of culinary school I followed suit, and never looked back as it also has taken me around the world and see and meet some very interesting people. ~ Marc
• I spent the majority of my loan at university on food, so after I finished my 2nd year I decided to give cheffing a go. Loved the frantic behaviour it involved, so started to work my way up and never looked back. ~ Chris
• My Grandma, who created the most amazing tastes from the most basic ingredients. ~ Bogdan
• When I was growing up is South Africa, my dad was a stand up comedian and we traveled around staying in 5 star hotels and eating in good restaurants. My dad was also a very good cook himself and we always ate meals as a family. I guess that’s where I got my love for food. ~ Daniel
• My mum, dad and uncle were all chefs and I knew that’s what I wanted to do from a very young age. I was always in the kitchen cooking with my mum and said that’s what I want to be when I grow up. ~ Lee
• I was passionate about food and wanted to work in some of the most iconic hotels and restaurants to see what the buzz was all about. ~ Dean
• All those years ago wow, I started working part time as a Kitchen Porter, I had never seen food like this being created. I wanted to learn more, I was hooked. What I didn’t realise is I would be getting high wages, 9-5 hours, weekends off and no working at Christmas what job offers that? ~ Mark