Origins of Tom Kerridge

Restaurants in London, Manchester and the two-Michelin-starred Hand and Flowers, together with a bookshelf's worth of best-sellers, have made Tom Kerridge a household name, but it all started with spag bol. Cooking dinner for his younger brother while his mum worked two jobs gave Tom Kerridge his first experience of running a kitchen. But even though he was only ensuring the baked beans didn't get burnt and the Findus Crispy Pancakes didn't get too crispy, he was still learning to love the sense of accomplishment that comes with cooking a meal

Spaghetti bolognese

My mum would make a proper spaghetti bolognese every Wednesday night – nothing from a jar, frying the mince and onions up, mixing in the tomatoes, herbs, then leaving it until the next day. It’s simple but that’s where my understanding of things maturing and tasting better comes from. It was about the process: cooking from scratch and flavour-enhancing properties.

Gloucester

My first kitchen job was in a hotel in Calcot. I needed the money. It wasn’t the food I fell in love with – it was the people and the place. The mix of fire and knives. There’s always the sense of being naughty in the kitchen – it’s like a pirate ship. I fell in love with the left-field way of life, the late nights, working weekends. When my mates were out on a Friday, I thought it was cool to be working, to be different to everybody else.

Marco Pierre White

He was my first major culinary hero. When I first started working in a kitchen at 18, my mum bought me White Heat. If you speak to many chefs my age, they’ll all cite that cookbook. Up until then, cookbooks were all big textbooks with chefs in tall white paper hats, whereas the reality was chefs were dressed in a check apron, looking knackered and wearing Hi-Tecs. Marco brought this rogue element to cooking, but using lessons from three-Michelin-starred chefs. It was so far from anything else – the dishes were so immaculate, so beautiful, so immensely perfect. The ingredients were mind-blowing, too – things like foie gras, caviar and lobster. It was unlike anything I’d seen before.

London

The only place I ever really wanted to be was London. I got a job at The Capital Hotel, and then I went to work at Stephen Bull's, under head chef Jon Bentham. He's the most influential chef I’ve ever worked for: dishes changing every day, braising, curing, pickling. I got a great understanding of cooking and British food.

Gary Rhodes

I moved with Jon to work with Gary Rhodes and he was another huge influence on my career. And it wasn't just on me, either. Gary's influence on the whole of Great Britain has been massive – he’s gained respect for simple, strong, British ingredients the world over. He’s such an incredible chef and, importantly, he used to take things away from the plate instead of adding them – keeping the dishes refined and focused and simply about finding the best ingredients.

Pork

I love pork and I’ve become known for certain pork dishes but it’s hard to pick out one favourite ingredient or dish. I just want everything that we cook to be something I really want to eat myself. I want there to be a sense of disappointment when you put a dish on the pass that you’re not the one who'll be eating it.

Seasonal vegetables

It hasn't got to be local – local makes no sense, local doesn’t mean good. With meat, I use different produce from different places. Beef is usually from up north, sometimes the South West. With fruit and vegetables, though, it's always seasonal: British fruits, peas, broad beans in summer, root veg in the autumn.

French cuisine

It’s always been French cuisine for me. France is so vast – there are so many touch points to it. Southern France has the Mediterranean and the warm weather hitting the aubergines and courgettes, then you go to northern France, which is like here, with apples, dairy and cider-making, then towards the Alps and Alsace and it’s all curing and smoking. It’s got everything.

Marlow

I really love it in Marlow. We’ve been here for 15 years now and we’ve been so well supported. It’s just a fantastic, beautiful, picturesque town. It’s home now, and always will be.