MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Chef Skye Gyngell

Skye GynGell, 53, is head chef at Spring, her restaurant at Somerset House. She lives in london and has two daughters, Holly, 27, and evie, 20.

I GREW up in the suburbs of Sydney, where everyone knew everyone’s business, yet rarely talked openly about their problems. I studied law out of a sense of duty to my father, who was desperate for one of his children to follow in his footsteps at Sydney University. But I knew I didn’t want to be a lawyer.

In 1981, I took a student job washing up at a Sydney restaurant — and it was here, up to my elbows in suds, that I suddenly felt all my selfdoubt start to fall away.

All day, I’d watch the head cook, an Australian Lebanese woman called Layla Sorfie, work what seemed to me pure magic. Boning duck; whipping up delicate sauces with spices I’d never seen before; creating puff pastry with the skill of a French patissier.

Layla’s joy in food, and passion for ingredients was obvious even to the shy girl at the sink.

One day, she asked me if I’d like to make the mayonnaise, and as I beat the oil and egg yolk together I felt certain this was where I was happiest. The kitchen.

When I told my parents I was following not in Dad’s footsteps but Layla’s, they were furious and told me I had to pay back every penny university had cost them.

But certainty made me brave, and I did it anyway, winning a place at La Varenne, the Parisian cookery school at which Layla had studied. I didn’t go back to Australia, but moved to London and worked at The Dorchester Hotel under Anton Mosimann.

Even now, with my own restaurant and as a former holder of a Michelin star, my very favourite thing to do in the morning is make a salad dressing.