MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Celebrity chef Angela Hartnett

AFTER graduating from the polytechnic, I started working in kitchens around Cambridge. I’d been working in a pub, then in a brasserie where we served club sandwiches, soup and chilli con carne on a Friday night.

I went to Barbados and that was a real eye-opener, getting to grips with ordering and staffing. When I came back, I had a choice — stay in Cambridge or move to London.

I decided to try my hand in London and wrote loads of letters to restaurants — by hand, there was no email back then. I had replies from a few and offers to do trial days. One was in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen at his first restaurant, Aubergine.

In 1994 chefs didn’t get the sort of publicity they do now, but Gordon was the man of the moment. There were features on him in the papers, and everyone was talking about Aubergine, even though it had only just opened.

So the fact that he, the most exciting chef in London, believed in me was the lightbulb moment that made me realise I could do this, that I could be a chef — and in a bigger way than I’d ever dreamed.

I’d always thought I’d open a little local restaurant with whoever my boyfriend was at the time, but working with Gordon changed all that.

Obviously I didn’t realise it was going to be that hard — 7am until gone midnight most days — and I’d not had the traditional grounding many chefs had. I’d never been to catering college, I’d never made a souffle or a terrine, certainly not the way Gordon made them, but I learnt quickly and I learnt a lot.

Now I’ve got a Michelin star, a book and some very nice restaurants. If I hadn’t worked for Gordon, I think it would have been a very different life.

AnGeLA’s next masterclass is on october 20, limewoodhotel.co.uk/ hartnett-holder-and-co