Hail to the chef
Antony Worrall Thompson talks about TV, celebrity rivalries and the perils of becoming a brand…
‘I’m the biggest branded chef in Europe,’ Antony Worrall Thompson declares proudly to Time Out as he settles into one of Dubai’s finest restaurants on his first visit to the city. With recipe books, DVDs, cooking equipment, kitchen appliances, food products, an autobiography and more with his autograph emblazoned across the packaging, it’s fair to say that the TV chef has come a long way since his catering college training more than 25 years ago.
Before the starters arrive we ask him what part of his life comes first, the celebrity or the cheffing. ‘I like TV’, he replies. ‘I’ve been on it for 14 years, but I’m a realist and know it’s not going to last forever.’ He then smiles and adds: ‘But I’m going to make the most of it while it does’. He clarifies: ‘I wouldn’t put my name on a packet of cheap frozen burgers,’ but admits that endorsements ‘really are big business’.
While there’s no doubting the lucrative nature of AWT merchandise, it’s the small screen that Worrall Thompson has to thank for his rise to fame. From guest appearances on one of the longest-running and most popular cookery shows on television, Ready, Steady, Cook, to a spot basking in his own lime light in the form of Saturday Kitchen, via a fleeting foray into reality TV, his face – love it or hate it – is instantly recognisable.
Worral Thompson was originally inspired by watching wine swigging ‘old Keith Floyd’ on the box. ‘You have these young good-looking chefs on television nowadays, like Jamie Oliver and James Martin, but I got into it thanks to my personality,’ he says. ‘Now you have to be 6ft tall with a 20-inch waist and a straight nose to get into the business, but I was lucky.’
Luck wouldn’t be a word you’d immediately associate with the critically-acclaimed and tirelessly professional chef who has run his own restaurants since 1981. He’s charmingly open and has a frankness developed over years of dealing with the press – although there have been a few occasions when he’s had his fingers burnt. Worall Thompson brushes aside certain ‘comical’ scandals which he’s been implicated in by the media, which he says are untrue for the most part. But one thing he admits to be correct is his long-running and well-publicised spat with Gordon Ramsay. ‘Gordon slags off chefs for being on television, but he’s one of the biggest TV chefs there are,’ he says. ‘TV chefs form a kind of brotherhood, we should stick together, so Gordon’s criticisms p*** me off. I’ve told him to get f***** to his face, I don’t care that he’s much bigger than me.’
‘I’m not a poncy chef’ he claims. ‘I like good, natural food and the power of ingredients not the prettiness on the plate. I used to be flash and poncy but a lot has changed over the years.’ It’s a philosophy that has won him the approval of many a viewer of his latest effort, Saturday Kitchen, an hour-and-a-half long live show broadcast on BBC Food which the host describes modestly as ‘hangover TV’. The formula, while popular, is hardly groundbreaking: Worrall Thompson invites regular guests (all experts in their culinary fields) to help him in the kitchen and imparts advice, hints and tips to viewers. Like Ready, Steady, Cook, there is always an onscreen challenge and a victor in the popularity stakes – which the host invariably wins. And perhaps due to its daytime scheduling in the UK (and the hangover theory) the show has proved a hit with a budding new generation of chefs, not just the middle aged housewives you might expect.
As more delightfully decadent courses arrive in the busy kitchen of Grosvenor House’s Mezzanine restaurant – at their new ‘chef’s table’ (prepared by Gary Robinson, Prince Charles’s former personal chef no less), Worrall Thompson barely looks around as pots and pans clank together and orders are bellowed out. He admits that the most pressure he has ever felt under wasn’t in the kitchen, but in the jungle on 2003’s series of the British reality show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here and blames unfair editing as the cause of his exit on the penultimate day. He also says that screaming: ‘I want to speak to my agent,’ was probably his most embarrassing moment to date. ‘I thought there were pizzas being delivered behind the scenes and that it would be a doddle, but it really was one of the hardest things I have ever done.’ It also helped him be recognised by a far wider audience than gastro buffs. ‘People stare into my trolley more at the supermarket now – I buy ready meals, we all do.’ he says with a chuckle.
Having already enjoyed a visit to Dubai’s spice souk and had a wander around the city, Worrall Thompson’s next port of call is a meal at the Burj Al Arab. ‘I’ve heard people question whether there is such thing as a seven star hotel, but I love the design, and really want to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be’, he says. As Saturday Kitchen goes from strength to strength, his onscreen quarrel with Ramsay (which is often obliquely refered to in the show) looks set to continue. Time Out would love to see the battle brought to the table in the form of a competitor to Verre. ‘I’ve been asked to open a restaurant here,’ Worrall Thompson reveals, ‘and maybe I will’. Watch out Ramsay: AWT’s coming after you. Michelle Byrne.
Saturday Kitchen, Saturdays, 20:30, BBC Food.