Mark Sargeant

A former right-hand man to Gordon Ramsay and now building an empire of his own, Mark Sargeant is in fine form. He talks to Mark Sansom about being a London restaurant fixer and putting Folkestone on the map

It’s a typical August afternoon in London as Food and Travel meets Mark Sargeant at 34 restaurant in Mayfair. Biblical-grade rain, media industry suits on extended pub lunches and tourists looking bemusedly at the faulty umbrellas they’ve just picked up from a street vendor. Sargeant, on the other hand, bounces up the steps three at a time with a grin on his face as wideas the weather. I’ve met him a few times before and that’s what gets me: his sheer enthusiasm and energy. ‘Tigger on a good day’ was once used to describe him – and it’s accurate. At 42, he can’t sit still, always fidgeting. It’s this boundless energy that keeps driving him forward.

Down in Folkestone, which he now calls home, he’s building an empire. Rocksalt opened in 2011 to much acclaim, followed soon after by upmarket fish and chip shop The Smokehouse. Down by the harbour is Rocksalt Rooms, four well-appointed boltholes; and in nearby Ickham, The Duke William pub is ‘a proper boozer, with decent food tacked on’ (his words, not mine). There are plans to open more pubs too. In London, it’s a similar story. His name is above the door on three sites,but he doesn’t cook there,he just curates the menu. It’s this skill – going into a restaurant, realising what is wrong and fixing it – that’s making his stock rise today.

Sargeant doesn’t have a hose or a big red truck, but he is a firefighting chef du jour. If there’s a London restaurant in trouble, he’s top of the list to turn its fortunes around. When Plum + Spilt Milk opened at the Great Northern Hotel in King’s Cross, it flopped. When they brought Sargeant in, it raised its profile and turnover in one breath. Likewise, The Strand Dining Rooms, a megalithic space on Trafalgar Square that critics seemed intent on closing from opening night. He came in, refreshed the menu and now it’s washing its face.

‘I get a sense of a place as soon as I walk in,’ he says. ‘By the time I’ve looked at a menu I already know what I need to do. Generally, it means going back to basics and finding the identity of a place. What’s outside? Who’s going to be eating here? And what would I want to eat? These are the core questions that I ask.’

It’s not luck or something spiritual that’s given him this Matrix-style ability to decode a restaurant, rather hard graft. Sargeant spent 13 years working for one Gordon Ramsay. He joined Aubergine in 1997, before spending four years as sous chef at Royal Hospital Road, helping it to three-star status. He then moved up the ranks, opening Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s in 2001. It gained a Michelin star in 2002, which he retained until he left in 2009. In just a few years, the restaurant would close for good.

Few have worked in a Ramsay kitchen longer than Sargeant, an accolade in itself. What was it like working for the firebrand? ‘Hardcore. There were times when he’d scream at me an inch from my face. I’d stand up straight and say “Yes, Gordon!”. I got sacked at least three times and I’d turn up the next day. He’d say: “Oh, you’re back then?” And that was it. We got on with it.’

Sargeant’s dedication certainly fitted in with Ramsay’s work ethic. ‘When I joined Aubergine, Gordon was at his hardest. I thought if I could do a year there, I could work anywhere. My plan was to move to Italy and finish my chef’s education. It’s my favourite place in the world and the food there is better than anywhere else.

‘But I didn’t want to leave. He pushed me to the edge – but I loved it. I was doing 106-hour weeks at Royal Hospital Road after Aubergine, but I just wanted to do more and more. I knew he was the guy to get me to the place I wanted to go. Somehow, I’d become his blue-eyed boy and I blossomed, which is when he gave me Claridge’s.’

Ramsay was entering his Noughties pomp and Sargeant was the man he entrusted with Claridge’s – for a chef, it doesn’t get much better. ‘The seven years I spent there, winning a Michelin star and introducing the first chef’s table concept in London were some of the proudest of my life. I remember when David Bailey had a book launch and Kate Moss came into the kitchen to say hello – it was the first time I was star struck.’ It was precisely in those years that the cult of the rock star chef was born.

Sargeant bought his first Ferrari that year, a 355 GTB, then upgraded to a 360 Modena. He bought a million-pound house in Chiswick and found himself on prime-time TV. He and Ramsay were centre stage at food shows, performing in front of 3,000-strong crowds, three times a day – One Direction, eat your heart out. Everything he’d worked hard for was falling into place. For a working-class lad from a nondescript housing estate in Kent, it was everything he wanted. Until he had to make the ‘scariest phone call of his life’.

‘I set Claridge’s on fire. One of the brigade was flambéing the alcohol off a terrine of foie gras and the flame got sucked into the air vent. There was no blaze in the kitchen, but looking up into the duct you could see this ball of fire sending out an awful roaring noise. I emptied two CO2 extinguishers into the vent and it was still going.

‘I then had to do something I’d hoped never to have to do in my career: pressing the emergency button in the kitchen.’ In cheffing terms, it’s DEFCON 1, particularly in a hotel restaurant. ‘I found myself in my whites on the street outside the hotel. Ocean’s Twelve was premiering and the cast were at the hotel. I found myself in between Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Pitt was obviously trying to be funny when he asked if it was my fault we were standing in the cold. I don’t think I even answered him, all I could think about was that call to Gordon.’

The telephone transcript isn’t appropriate for publication, but for anyone familiar with Ramsay’s oeuvre, you won’t need it verbatim. Not too long after that Sargeant chose to part company with his employer. Aged 36, he wanted to cut the apron strings and stride out on his own. ‘When I told him when I was leaving, I burst into tears. I couldn’t be “Sarge” any more, I had to go and do my own thing. A clean break. We didn’t fall out, but when you leave Gordon, that’s it.’

He stops and takes a measured sip of the wine – a Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste he has chosen to go with his grouse. ‘We had a dinner planned shortly afterwards to say goodbye. On the day of the reservation I got a call from his PA saying he couldn’t make it. After 13 years’ service, that was it. It was the last I heard from him.’

Moving to Kent has given him a sense of perspective. He and wife Nancy have two children: Ivy, five, and Pearl, three. Dipping in and out of projects allows him to have a more pragmatic view of the capital’s restaurant scene, shown in his constant success. ‘Chefs are changing. In my day, there were a lot of restaurants, but only a few you’d want to work in. High-end Michelin and quality brasseries like Quaglino’s and Mezzo.Because fine dining has pretty much died in London and there are so many good restaurants, chefs are less interested in getting to the top of their game in terms of that. You can make a lot of money doing something else – just look at Pitt Cue Co. and Kitty Fisher’s, twentysomething guys who have no real experience and they’re absolutely smashing it.’

Now he’s at the core of Folkestone life, doing a good job for the local tourist board: ‘The architecture is amazing, far better than Brighton. It’s a sleeping giant in terms of a beach destination, with some of the best schools in the country. People bang on about Whitstable, but it’s better. It’s arty like Margate, but better looking.’

Sure, he sounds like a community stalwart – but a glint in his eye as we talk about London makes me think that we’ll see him behind a London pass again. Even if only for ‘one last job’.