Prestigious chefs are celebrated for their culinary magic, but what surprising myths do people believe about them? We posed this question to eight top chefs, including Yotam Ottolenghi, Poppy O’Toole and Alasdair Gill.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam is a chef and restaurateur
“People would think that every meal in my house is like an Ottolenghi display of indulgence, but actually there’s a lot of very simple meals going on and lots of takeouts.”
Poppy is a chef and content creator
“Sometimes I give off the impression that I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s all an act. I have my own YouTube channel now and do cooking shows and all this sort of stuff. And I do, not purposefully, act like I don’t know what I’m doing, which is a kind of protection for me because I don’t want to mess something up confidently and then get told off for doing something wrong. I have quite a barrier of not wanting to get anything wrong. So sometimes I act a bit silly, like I don’t know what I’m doing. When actually, I do. I have worked in professional kitchens. I can be very good at what I do. I just protect myself by being a little bit extra dramatic.
I’ve had a few comments such as ‘I don’t actually trust anything this woman does because it never seems like she knows what she’s doing’. It was a flippant comment, but it made me realise that when it comes to my food, I need to get a little bit more cheffy and really bring the years of work that I actually did into it and show people.”
Alasdair Gill
Alasdair is a chef and writer
“Perhaps that I’m quite hard working at the moment! I work hard, but I think my concept of business is also drilled into me from the chef days and the hours, which I don’t do anymore. That’s like the pinnacle of hard work.
I still work really hard, and in many ways it’s expanded into a lot of different kinds of limbs. I’ve got a lot more rotas and logistics of ordering things than you do as a chef. It’s a lot more, but I have more time. Having a couple of events a week is busy for me, whereas before, I would have been working six days a week.”
Clare Smyth
Clare is a Michelin-starred chef
“There’s only one thing I can think of – I wish when I went out to eat, or when I went to my friend’s house, they didn’t think that I really care about what I’m eating, because I actually don’t at all. I really couldn’t care less – I am really the easiest person to serve in a restaurant or at home. It’s just nice to be cooked for, and I am out to have a good time. I’ll have a good time anywhere!”
Nigel Ng aka Uncle Roger
Nigel is a cookbook author, restaurateur and content creator
“I think people see what I do on the internet and just assume we make silly reaction videos. Reaction videos on YouTube can be a mixed bag, right? Sometimes it’s just really lazy. Somebody is just playing the video and not even talking that much. But everything we make, we spend a lot of effort researching the actual dish. We spend a lot of effort writing the jokes for it. Everything I put out, we are proud of.
Of course, as the years go by, you will look back at old videos and cringe a little bit – every artist or creator does this. But everything we put out, we put out with a lot of care and thought. People notice that there’s a cookbook coming out and may assume, ‘he can’t even cook and now he’s selling a cookbook, what a cash grab’. If only they knew this cookbook is not as lucrative as they think it is, and it takes so much more effort than you think it’s going to take.
Everything we do, we put out with a lot of care, a lot of thought. I think the misconception is, ‘oh, he just makes a dumb reaction video; he makes silly faces and stupid catchphrases. People think that, but the reality is a lot of work goes behind it.”
