His Gourmet Abu Dhabi evening may leave you confused…
‘I’m creating an evening of dishes that are presented in a surreal manner. Everything is made from one thing but it’s presented to look like something completely different, so your entrée may look like a cupcake but it’s really a savoury lamb dish with mashed potatoes that are dyed with beetroot. Your dessert may look like a soft boiled egg but it’s really white chocolate mousse and a passion fruit centre. You cut the top of the egg off not even knowing that it’s been tampered with.’
He brings everything with him, including the kitchen sink…
‘I did a show for five seasons called The Surreal Gourmet. In every episode I’d take my rolling kitchen to a different location and cook up a fabulous themed dinner for the guests I was cooking for. So if I was cooking for firemen, every dish would be flambéed; if I was cooking for ballerinas, every dish would be pink. I still own the toaster-mobile, in case you were wondering. I’ve loaned it to a winery in Cinoma, where I occasionally go up and cook meals from it.’
He’s a quick study…
‘My other show is called Glutton for Punishment, and in every episode I’d have five days to learn a physically challenging skill, and then on the fifth day I’d enter a competition against highly trained professionals. For example, I had five days to learn how to detoxify fugu (the highly poisonous Japanese blowfish) and then I ate the fugu that I prepared. It usually takes Japanese fugu chefs three years to get their license.
I believe I’m still alive. Let me just check…’
Pain means nothing to him…
‘I entered the Dorset Stinging Nettle Eating Competition. We had to eat raw stinging nettles. The amount you eat is measured by their stem, so we had to whack off these two-foot high stems and, when you clear all the leaves off the stem, that would count as two feet. To win the competition you had to eat around 50ft of stem per hour. Did it hurt? Yes. Am I a glutton for punishment? I live up to my name.’
He hasn’t always been a professional foodie…
‘Eighteen years, 140 television shows and six cookbooks ago, I was in the music business. I always had a passion for cooking, and I wrote a cookbook as a pet project and it turned into my accidental career. What I do now is my own way of playing with my food.’
As a child…
‘I always wanted to be a professional hockey player. Where did it all go wrong? (Laughs) I wasn’t big enough or good enough.’
He’s street…
‘When it comes to food, I’m all about gravitating towards street food as opposed to finding out where all the fancy restaurants are [so you’ll most likely find him queuing outside Lebanese Flower].’
His favourite food is French fries…
‘Not just French fries, though – extra-crispy, hand cut French fries, served with aioli.’
