How on earth did I end up owning a Nepalese Restaurant?
My first solo venture into the kitchen was on a cold, snowy day when I was 5. I’d gone outside to play in the snow when I spotted a rat. It wasn’t moving, it was stiff as a board, frozen solid, and I was sure it would make a great meal for the cat. I took it home to cook. I found a pan, added salt and the rat was ready to cook, when I realised I couldn’t turn the cooker on. Pleased with the progress I’d made, I went to find my mother, who I was convinced would shower me with praise when she saw what I’d done. Imagine my surprise when she wasn’t impressed by my ingenuity. She let out an ear-piercing squeal. Alarmed by a noise I’d never heard before, I ran outside and hid in the coal shed. After what felt like ages, I crept back into the kitchen, covered in coal dust, to face my pale-faced mother. She was calm, too calm. I was in trouble. How dare I walk into the house in that state? I’d ruined my clothes and obviously had no respect for the people who bought them for me. I could see the thawing rat out of the corner of my eye as I received a smacked bottom. Under the threat of eternal damnation, I took the rat back outside. Then, nursing my burning backside, I was scrubbed clean and banished to my bedroom for the rest of the day. I avoided the kitchen as much as possible after that.
It took a lot of courage to step back into a kitchen, and it wasn’t until I was a teenager in need of holiday money that I took the plunge. My first proper kitchen job was in Guernsey, cooking breakfasts in a guest house. It was 1976, everyone was boogieing to Trex, and my job was the holy grail of holiday jobs, cooking breakfasts and spending the rest of the day on the beach with my friends. Summers continued in that happy balance until I left School with no idea of what to do. My holiday job became my permanent job, and I worked through the ranks in wine bar kitchens. Cooking nice food for nice people, it was all very safe until I unintentionally fell into supplying crabs and lobsters to Harrods via working in a shellfish factory kitchen. Going down to the harbour to meet the boats and choose the best of the day’s catch was freedom, and for the second time, I walked away from the kitchen. I ended up working on a fishing boat, farming oysters, and breading shellfish. Two winters of frozen hands and wading up to my middle in icy seawater, and I realised there must be more out there.
Off I went to London with a holdall of clothes and no clue what I would do. I needed a job urgently and saw an advert for an oysterman and chef at Bentley’s in Mayfair. Now I wasn’t a chef, not a real one anyway, but somehow managed to blag my way into getting the job. I learned a lot working in a fine dining kitchen, mainly that the toxic, high-testosterone world of a 1980s fine dining kitchen wasn’t for me. After 3 years, I escaped, swapping my chef’s whites for trekking boots and an open fire in the foothills of the Himalaya. That’s where I learned who I was as a chef, without gadgets, and with a khukuri instead of a kitchen knife. There weren’t any shops or suppliers to call on when I needed an order, I had to cook with what was available and the few spices I could carry with me. A chicken would be bartered for while it was still running around, I would then have to catch it, kill it and pluck it before I could start cooking. Taking a life and cooking when supplies are scarce, you learn a healthy and deeper respect for your ingredients.
Working in Nepal was extraordinary. I was constantly on the move, one day white water rafting, the next I’d be tracking tigers in the jungle, all the time I’d be bartering and chatting with villagers, collecting recipe ideas out of interest. I met Sera when I was on leave, not on some romantic adventure but in a pub in Hackney. We continued to run expeditions in Nepal and sell Nepalese clothes at music festivals during the off-season. After a lot of deliberation, and when Arun, our son, was school age, we decided to settle in the UK. In 2003, we sold everything to buy our first restaurant, and in 2004, Yak Yeti Yak opened with Mini, our second baby, in a box under the bar as we served. Arun was at home with a babysitter, if anyone is concerned.