Flash-grilled: Harvey Trollope
What was your first job?
Kitchen Porter at Nortel Telecoms in Arnos Grove.
What is your guiltiest food pleasure?
A Nutella toastie.
What’s the best restaurant meal you’ve ever had?
Recently, at Flor in Borough Market.
What industry figure do you most admire?
Fergus Henderson.
If you weren’t in kitchens, what would you do?
In wine, as a sommelier or wine maker.
What is your biggest regret?
I wish I had got into cooking full time earlier.
Pet hate in the kitchen?
Untidiness.
What’s the oddest thing a customer has said to you?
The other day a customer asked why their rare bavette steak wasn’t hot in the middle.
What’s the dish you wish you’d thought of?
Steak and kidney pie.
Describe your cooking style in three words...
Simple, flavoursome and seasonal.
Most overrated food?
An American take on Tex-Mex.
Restaurant dictator for a day – what would you ban?
Truffle oil.
What’s the worst review you’ve ever had?
When I was Marco Pierre White’s sous chef at Wheeler’s we had a pretty bad review from Fay Maschler.
If you could cook for anyone in the world who would you pick, and why?
George Orwell. My favourite book is Down and Out in Paris and London; a must read for anyone who has ever worked in restaurants.
What advice would you give someone starting out in the industry?
Work for a chef who really cares and cooks everything from scratch.
Which single item of kitchen equipment could you not live without?
A really good kitchen knife.
What do you cook at home on your days off?
We have a veg box delivered weekly, so lots of vegetables and veg pastas.
What’s your earliest food memory?
Eating a pork pie when I was about five years old, from a Sainsbury’s in Vauxhall.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Treat people as you would like to be treated.
What’s the closest you’ve ever come to death?
I was chased by a crocodile in Zambia once. I ran quickly.
Where do you go when you want to let your hair down?
My local pub: The Earl Ferrers in Streatham.
Tipple of choice?
A pint of ale.
What would you choose to eat for your last meal?
A whole roast suckling pig with spring greens, Cornish mids, and a pinot noir from Burgundy.
