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Every month we interview top chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks, views on the industry and more. This week, we speak to Great British Menu winner, Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur Tommy Banks.
When I was growing up my mum and dad ran a bed and breakfast… It did mean that every day was basically breakfast service in our house. Everything was just to a fine art and I probably didn’t realise at the time, but it definitely had an influence on me. Because it was on a farm, my dad would collect the eggs every morning and then he would crack them all on to saucers. Then he would grade them on look and quality, and then he would decide which ones to use for each job. So only the ones in his A grade would get poached, and then it would be fried, and then scrambled would be the lowest grade.
When the family took over the (now Michelin-starred) Black Swan in North Yorkshire, I was 17… I did one year of A-levels, was politely asked not to come back for a second year and started working. It was very much make it up as you go along and figure it out. But that’s nearly 20 years ago now.
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Everyone lowered prices during the 2008 crash, but we put them up… The crash was really tough on many industries, but hospitality in particular is one of the first things that suffers when people don’t have money. What we noticed was that everybody was doing cheap deals, two-for-ones, all this sort of thing was the rage at the time. But realistically, you don’t travel into the middle of nowhere for a bargain. So we actually put our prices up and we tried to make it more of an experience rather than just doing what everyone else did. That’s easier said than done when you’ve got no idea what you’re doing as a 21-year-old, but I think it was a sound strategy. It is probably quite an interesting strategy for today’s market as well. It can be a race to the bottom if you’re not careful.
I won a Michelin star when…
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