During the interview with Restaurant’s editor Stefan Chomka, Wareing discusses his infamous showdown with fellow chef Johhnie Mountain on BBC2’s Great British Menu and expresses his excitement at being appointed as Michel Roux Jr's replacement on MasterChef.
“MasterChef is the biggest gig of all. Every chef worth his weight in gold would have loved it,” he says.
“Having feared TV all my life it was nice that it took me for who I was. There’s another character to me, not the one dimensional hard guy that everyone sees – there is a nice person in there too... honest.”
He opens up about his solitary nature and obsessive work ethic, which he developed while working with his father as a young boy.
“You have to have routine and self-discipline to be able to run a business and a kitchen – my father drove that into me. His work ethic was so precise it was obsessive. It runs through my veins,” he explains.
The chef also discusses the impact that refurbishing Marcus at The Berkley had on his life, his plans for new restaurant Tredwell’s, which opens on London’s Upper St Martins lane later this month, and his desire to nurture talent in his business.
“I want to make my core people wealthy,” he says. “I’m going to do it with my money and invest into them – give them a chunk of the company.”
With a successful restaurant empire and a new TV gig, Wareing finally seems to be mellowing, writes Chomka.
“I feel happier, I’m in the right place,” Wareing says. “Yes I’ll go to a meeting and be firm. There’s a lot at stake and I want my teams to understand what it is and where we’re going. What I am now is a happy, hard bastard because I’ve got what I want.”
Read the full interview in Restaurant Magazine.
Also in September's Restaurant magazine:
- Business profile: Loch Fyne
- Focus on Northern restaurants
- Sweeping the board: the British cheese takeover