William Sitwell receives a lesson in squeezing from Robert Perrino, ex-nightclub promoter turned celebrity juice-maker.
Good morning, captain, drink my concoction," says Robert Perrino, juice-squeezer and smoothie-creator to the stars, as he hands me his "perfect orange juice". I am in the corner of a bar in London's Leicester Square called Little Havana, which each morning serves as Perrino's office. Here, along with his two extremely healthy-looking assistants Susanna and Catherine, he presses fresh juices daily for the restaurants of Marco Pierre White and others.
I have come to the great man, whose company is called Robert the Juice, for a masterclass in squeezing fruit and making smoothies. This is not the first time I have met Perrino. I remember him from his more crazy days, when he ran nightclubs. These days, he is a healthier person, albeit just as manic, but he focuses his mania on his fruit-crushing. "I started making drinks to help my stomach," he says, reflecting on the period in the mid-Nineties when he checked himself into rehab. "I've been rebuilding myself since then," he continues. "I'm still alive and am quite healthy" - which, of course, is where the juice comes in. "I did a juice bar in Camden market called Zamba. Then I decided to go wholesale and Marco asked if I would do the juice for his restaurants."
My lesson includes Robert's tips on how to make orange juice. "You should always wash your oranges, because many of them are waxed and that isn't very healthy," he explains. Fortunately, Susanna and Catherine are on hand to wash and cut the oranges before pressing them onto the heavy-duty Waring blender. You need to press the fruit down in short bursts with your palms and avoid getting your fingers churned up.
When Robert and his team are in full squeezing mode, they operate at about half an orange a second, and it's hard work doing this for several hours each morning at dawn. The nutritional value of fruit starts to diminish the moment it is squeezed, so you need to drink it as fresh as possible.
The orange juice is delicious, but Robert also has an obsession with pink grapefruit. "I swear by them. I'm convinced they do something to your fat in the morning, I think it's in the tangy taste." In fact, these fruits are full of salubrious qualities. They are packed with vitamin c, of course, but perhaps less well-known is that they contain pectin. This substance is familiar to jam-makers, who value its gelling property, but it can also reduce cholesterol levels and lessen the risk of cancer. Pink grapefruits also contain potassium, which can combat high blood pressure, and folate, a b vitamin that is particularly important for pregnant women. So his gut instinct was correct.
It is time now to move on to more complicated things - making smoothies (and I'm not talking about the late Charles Gray or the likes of Terry-Thomas). Smoothies are the soft drinks for the internet generation and are simply freshly squeezed fruit-and-vegetable cocktails.
'Smoothies' have a nice ring to them, although on the morning of Robert's lesson I feel like calling them 'I've drunk several and my tummy feels like it's going to explodies'. They arrived in Britain from - surprise, surprise - California, and these days are popular among people, such as the internet start-up generation, who don't have the time to think about maintaining a balanced diet. Drinking, let's say, an unusually coloured potato, strawberry and kumquat smoothie is an appealing way, for many, to get the recommended dose of fruit and vegetables, and, with juice bars opening all over the country, it has become a multimillion-pound industry.
For more complicated smoothies - using hard fruit such as apples - you need a centrifugal juicer, which separates the juice from the pulp; otherwise you can buy ready-squashed carrot and apple and add them to the softer fruits in a normal blender.
Robert, naturally, has all the right machines, though his blender has lost its lid and, when we put our various fruits in and turn it on, we get covered in a sticky mess. "Does this always have to happen?" I moan. "Listen," he says. "If you're a juicer, you're going to end up sticky at the end of the day. Look at all of us - we're all juiced up."
Our first smoothie is called Zola Power - Perrino is a Chelsea fan - and is made with banana, strawberry and frozen yoghurt. "If you're feeling adventurous, add a kiwi," he says. Next, we do a Summer Loving with white peach, strawberry and melon, which is delicious and light if thick, followed by a Hangover Heaven. This needs the heavy-duty centrifugal element to extract the juices of its ingredients - apple, carrot and ginger. This is quite a fizzy number and Robert slurps it down quickly. "I need this - I was a bit crazy in the head last night." Ginger is a great ingredient for smoothies designed to alleviate the effects of a heavy night: as well as aiding digestion, it suppresses nausea - useful qualities on a dog-rough morning when you need to go to a high-power meeting.
It's not my favourite, so we move on to an All The Berries, made as you would imagine with blueberry, blackberry, raspberry and strawberry. This is amazing and the girls love it. "It's got a really fresh taste and it's not as thick as the other one," says blonde Susanna, who fills me in on a little secret. "I'm 20, but I look like I'm 17." It must be all that fruit juice.