In an exclusive interview with BigHospitality at The Restaurant Show 2012(video below), Bains insisted it is ‘too hard’ to run two restaurants concurrently to the same high standards every day.
“I can’t do what we do in Nottingham again,” he said. “It’s just too hard and all my time and effort goes there. Yes, maybe in the future I’ll do something a bit more relaxed and chilled out like a brasserie,.
But there are no plans at the moment. It’s too hard to do two - I love the region I’m in and I’m proud that people are travelling from all over the world to come to Nottingham - why can’t it be in Nottingham?
“London sometimes is a bag of s***. I’ve been to restaurants that are brilliant, but there’s a faceless customer, it’s all really corporate. The customers we get are so different.”
Video
'Starting from zero'
Restaurant Sat Bains moved up the UK rankings on Monday evening, coming in fourth in the 2012 National Restaurant Awards.It also recently retained its two-Michelin-starred status in the Guide which was released a fortnight ago.
While flattered by the accolades, Bains is weary of becoming complacent and sticks to a mantra of ‘starting from zero every single day’ at the restaurant.
“Every day’s a blank canvas,” he said. “Wearing your accolades on your sleeve I think you’ve lost it We just cook the best we can every single day. We use some of the best suppliers in the UK, we’ve got the best team in the UK in the kitchen and we’ve got an amazing front-of-house team and we just try our best every single day.
“It’s all about the infrastructure of the restaurant, it’s about a team. You can have all the vision in the world but without that team believing in your vision, you’re not going to deliver. I’m very fortunate that I’ve got such a solid team.”
All for one...
Having taken over Restaurant Sat Bains in 2005 with wife Amanda, the chef went on to highlight the positive changes that have occurred in the industry while he has been working in Nottingham, with an added sense of camaraderie among fellow chefs helping to promote the UK food scene.
“It’s changed quite dramatically,” he added. “A lot of the chefs are all friends now and we’re all in the same age group. There’s a lot of camaraderie; we share things like staff, suppliers, and we’re trying to make the cuisine of Great Britain into a power house so that people really take notice.
“If you look back at the Marco (Pierre White) era and the (Gordon) Ramsay era, no one talked to each other. All the chefs now are open, we’re talking to each other, I get staff sent to me from the likes of Daniel Clifford and I send mine to other restaurants - I can see it only improving, it’s brilliant for the industry.”
The interview was shot at The Restaurant Show 2012 by Real Impact Productions following Sat Bains' butchery masterclass on centre stage.