The day before meeting Gary Rhodes, I watched one of his old TV programmes to remind myself of the flamboyancy with which he leapt into the public arena.
Think back. His hair was an Edward Scissorhands' dream: a well-gelled sculpture of potentially lethal black spikes. His smile was a crease so tight that it must surely have required hourly sprays of Ralgex. The food was "simple… fantastic… great". He'd do the boss a nova with a roasting tin towards the oven, or poke his nostrils into a malt loaf mix and groan in ecstasy. Love him or loathe him (some do), when Rhodes was in his prime on prime-time TV, the man was a visual feast.
And so to the next day and to Rhodes in person (the ascending hair has long since been sheared off). He is telling me that he knows of one person who cannot stomach those classic Gary Rhodes programmes, and his name is… Gary Rhodes.
"There are times when I flick on to UKTV Food and I'll see myself and think, 'Oh my God. Oh no.' I'll watch two minutes and turn it off." In fact, unlike his millions of fans, he does not watch any cookery shows, regardless of the host chef. "Not any more. And if I flick on accidentally, I end up punching the TV. I'm shouting, 'What the hell are you doing that for? You don't do it like that!' I won't mention the chefs' names, but watching them get it wrong makes me very angry."
As the day develops, there will be other niggles and gripes – evidence, perhaps, that away from the cameras, not everything is simple, fantastic, great. "I hate," says the 47-year-old celebrity chef, "the phrase 'celebrity chef'." And while his fame was founded on his talent for giving traditional British dishes a modern twist, he says, "I hate the phrase 'modern British': you go to a restaurant that claims to serve it and when the food arrives you think, 'That's not modern British – it's Thai.'"
We had arranged to meet in the bar at The Cumberland Hotel, which is just round the corner from Marble Arch and Oxford Street and where Rhodes oversees a brasserie and a fine-dining restaurant, Rhodes W1. I arrive, as requested, at 8.30am, but he doesn't appear until an hour later. Away from the stove, rich chefs tend to be poor timekeepers. "I was in the middle of a heavy phone call," he explains.
At his side is his personable sous chef, Wayne Tapsfield; both are in chef's whites and Dr Marten shoes, the sort of footwear favoured by policemen.
'I couldn't wait to get home from school and start cooking supper for the rest of the family – maybe a cottage pie'
As a child, Rhodes dreamt of becoming a racing driver or a cop: "I wanted to get into the traffic police. But the moment I started cooking, I became obsessed, so I put that policeman stuff aside."
We walk from the bar and into the fine-dining restaurant, pause to look around the room, then Rhodes says, "I really hate that phrase, 'fine dining'. Let's just call it a restaurant." He says the restaurant has yet to open to the public, but when I mention that I expected it to be up and running he gets tetchy.
"How these stories get out that we are supposed to be opening, I'll never know." Actually, it was his agent who told me it would be open. "We're not in any hurry to open the doors," he says. "We want to make sure it's right." When will it be right? "It's not a question of when it will be right. It's a question of when it will be ready." When will it be ready? "Don't ask."
"Today's a big day," he says. "We're doing eight guinea pigs." Come again, Gary? He explains that eight of his cronies will be eating a free lunch before critiquing the dishes. "I want them to say, 'Wow'." And so they should. He is serving amuse-bouches of foie gras and Devon crab; a starter of steamed smoked salmon in a salmon bisque; for dessert there will be a lemon chiboust (a pastry cream with meringue, served semifreddo), with raspberries. The main is a fillet steak on spinach, and a faggot sitting on caramelised onions, with a red wine sauce.
In the kitchen there's a brigade of six chefs who are there to cook for guinea pigs. "When I get angry I can use swear words that would shock Gordon Ramsay," says Rhodes, though it transpires that he swears only three times during the day. First, he tells a blow torch to eff off; then he swears at me when I ask why a chair in the restaurant is embossed with Gordon Ramsay's initials ("I'm 'GR' too!"). The third obscenity comes when I mention that Antony Worrall Thompson claims in his autobiography that Rhodes turned down a job with him. After some further colourful language, this is the response: "I don't recall ever going for a job with him, though I worked for his great mate, Brian Turner. Antony should forget about cookery programmes and do Jackanory instead."
Rhodes is the product of a broken home. His father, Gordon, walked out when Gary was six years old, leaving mother Jean to raise him and his siblings at their home in Gillingham, Kent. How did his father's departure shape Rhodes's life? "I don't remember much about it," he says, "But my mum was fantastic. It had a huge impact on my life because it made me independent. It made me stronger and consequently, when I was in my early teens, I took on that responsibility of feeding the family."
He tells the moving story of how he discovered cooking. "When I was about 13 or 14, my mother went back to work and I became the cook of the house. I couldn't wait to get home from school and start cooking supper for the rest of the family – maybe a cottage pie. Then I moved on to Sunday lunch. I'd go to watch Gillingham FC on a Saturday and whether they won or lost, I'd be thinking, 'What pudding can I do tomorrow?'"
His passion had to remain a family secret. "In those days, I'd have been kicked if I told my friends, 'I made a lovely lemon sponge and lemon sauce for Sunday lunch.' They'd have said, 'You should be wearing a skirt, Rhodes.'"
But when he decided he wanted a career in the kitchen, he confided in his best friend. "I said to him, 'I've got a secret to tell you. I've been doing all the cooking at home. I'm going to be a chef.'" He said, 'That's excellent.' I was shocked – and then he said, 'I've got a secret to tell you. I go to ballet classes.'"
By this time, Rhodes's mother had remarried and family stability had been restored. "My stepfather John is a man I love and adore," he adds. Rhodes did not expect to see his father again.
"But then, about ten years ago, I had a phone call. The voice said, 'Hello, it's Gordon here and I thought we should get together.' I saw him, and we talked briefly about the years that had been lost. But I had no feelings for him any more. He was a stranger to me." When Gordon died a couple of years ago, Rhodes went to the funeral. "I went with my brother who was an awful lot closer to him and kept some form of contact with him. So I went to support my brother as much as anything."
Apart from his father's vanishing act, there is a second dramatic incident in Rhodes' life. After studying at catering college in Thanet – where he met Jennie, the woman who would become his wife and the mother of his two sons, Samuel and George – Rhodes took on his first job at the Amsterdam Hilton. A fortnight later he was involved in an accident.
"On my first night off, a couple of the guys suggested going into town. On our way we heard the tram coming, started running and had to get into the middle of the road to get on it. I looked the wrong way. A transit van hit me. Smashed my head into a brick wall. I don't remember anything about it. Then I had a blood clot on the brain and had to have brain surgery; part of my skull was removed. I was out of work for nearly six months."
The guinea pigs were due at noon but at ten past the hour Rhodes and his head chef, the highly respected Brian Hughson, are wondering why they are not in the restaurant. "This is why," says Rhodes as he discovers the door is locked. But even when it is unlocked, there is no sign of his cronies. Instead, they are entrenched in the bar enjoying freebie cocktails, while Rhodes tastes the faggots, those succulent balls of offal.
Do not underestimate the role of faggots in Rhodes's career. They are his signature dish and have featured on menus at most of his restaurants, which include Rhodes Twenty Four, Rhodes Restaurant at Calabash (in Grenada) and Rhodes D7 in Dublin.
Don't underestimate the role of faggots in Rhodes's career. They have featured on most of his restaurants' menus
And faggots were there, 20 years ago, at the birth of his celebrity ("it all came about by pure surprise"). He was head chef at the Castle Hotel in Taunton (for which he had retained a Michelin star) when Glynn Christian, the chef who doubled as a presenter on breakfast TV, asked him to do a cookery demonstration for 30 young chefs.
"Glynn wanted a chef with a Michelin star. I had never done a demo but I thought to myself, 'Believe in what you are doing'. I cooked faggots and explained to the audience what offal I was using and how each little bit added flavour. Afterwards, Glynn
said, 'I've got all that on video. I think you've got a future in TV.' I didn't think any more of it. Two days later I got a call from BSB, before it merged with Sky, asking me to do five programmes. That's how it started."
Soon he was doing breakfast television, then the Hot Chefs series. "Then the BBC came along and said, 'We'd like you to write a book to accompany your own TV series, and I said, 'What is it – a morning show, or afternoon? They said, 'No, 8.30 on Wednesday evening.' I said, 'Oh my God! Prime-time TV.'"
He adds, "It's funny how things happen. I went to do a cookery demonstration and bingo, TV was born for me.
"I tried to do something new so there would be entertainment value. I wouldn't say, 'Today I am going to show you how to make some lovely sauce hollandaise'. Instead, I'd say, 'Guess what I am going to make for you? It's going to be buttery. It's going to be rich. And you're going to love it.'"
The price of fame was mockery from TV and restaurant critics. "I was young and wanted to know what people had to say about me. There would be a whole page, and I'd be thinking, 'Did they like the show?' I'd start reading and three quarters of it would be ridiculing me for my TV performance. There'd be a paragraph at the end about the cooking. And I'd want to burst into tears."
Producers encouraged him to ham it up. "It seemed natural at the time – when you are young and less mature, you go with it."
One evening he bumped into AA Gill, The Sunday Times restaurant and TV critic. "He said, 'Hello Gary. Listen, don't worry about what I wrote about you. We all have to write to entertain.' I said, 'Didn't read it. I didn't waste my time.' And we left it at that." He's also had run-ins with Giles Coren of The Times, "but I want to put to bed all that kind of thing with Giles. I want to give him a ring and say, 'Can we have a coffee? Can we talk about this? I would like you to come to my new restaurant.'"
He says, "If I were to try to hold on to the TV thing for the rest of my life, I think I would be very foolish." Then, nodding towards the stove, he says, "This is where my career started and it's where my career will end. But if I can enjoy other things in between that, then fantastic; it's a great bonus. I look at television as a superb supplement to my career."
He has other shows lined up – one with UKTV – and he is in talks with the BBC. When he recalls taking on Jean-Christophe Novelli for Hell's Kitchen his competitive streak is clearly visible. "I'd said to his team, 'Can you stop dancing and screaming around that kitchen and just get on with your work?' He didn't like me trying to tell his kitchen what to do. But do you know, for eight or nine days of that we didn't even say hello to one another, wouldn't speak."
Now he says of Novelli, "He might be taller and better looking. But I can cook and that's the difference."
It's one o'clock and the guinea pigs have weaved their way from the bar to the table. In the kitchen, Rhodes and his brigade are raring to go and a dozen waiters hover by the passe. The master sommelier, Yves Desmaris, comes into the kitchen with bad news. "They want Champagne," he tells Rhodes. The food will have to wait."
Two hours later, Rhodes finally sits down with the guinea pigs. He asks, "If you had a star of the show, what would it be?" Now they dish him a generous (if slurred) helping of praise.
TV producers encouraged him to ham it up. ‘It seemed natural at the time - you go with it‘
You don't see Rhodes out with his wife much. "We keep our family life private," he says. "There are a lot of wives who want superstar status – they love to sell their whole lives. Jennie doesn't want to do that. I love my career, which means that there are many hours when I'm not at home. But that's probably why we are still together – I'm not there to get on her nerves too much."
Of his sons he says, "When they were born I thought, 'I've got two chefs.' But they've said they don't want to be chefs. I have to accept it; but that's not to say they're not interested in food. I remember a holiday in France when Sam was 14. We were in a Michelin-starred restaurant and he said, 'I'm going to have the pigeon baked in salt.' At 14, I'd have been scared of a pigeon. I thought, 'Lucky little sod'. Afterwards, he said, 'I'm sorry, Dad. You've cooked me some great meals, but that was the best.'"
The guinea pigs, too, look like they've been well fed. They are in the bar enjoying post-dinner digestifs, each with a smile as wide as the one Rhodes showed when he used to dance with his roasting tin and snuggle up to the malt loaf mix.