East Side story
My day starts at about 7am. I'm living in the hotel, so I just catch the elevator down. After checking my messages, I take a spin around the hotel, check on the coffee bar operation in the lobby, call into the Shelton Grille where breakfast is being served, and pass by the kitchen.
Prior to arriving at the Marriott East Side, I was executive chef for six-and-a-half years at the 2,000-bedroom Marriott Marquis in Times Square, so I'm used to dealing with the business side of a busy food operation. Food and beverage turnover at the Marquis was an astonishing $75m (£51.6m) a year.
Depending on the day, there may be a number of meetings to get through. On Tuesday morning, for example, we hold the executive committee meeting; on Tuesday afternoon at 3pm, we have a staff meeting; and on Thursday at 3pm there's the food and beverage meeting.
As well as the day-to-day operation of the hotel, I'm heavily involved with keeping in touch with department heads regarding the hotel's ongoing renovation projects. On top of the refurbishment of all 600 bedrooms, the bar and lobby are being redone, and an overhaul is planned for the restaurant. This all requires a lot of discussion in establishing standards, finalising designs and drawing up training programmes.
The restaurant used to have a street presence on Lexington Avenue, but amazingly the decision was taken to move it back into the hotel. Consequently, it is mainly used by hotel guests, though we're trying to generate more outside interest.
We've brought in a new executive chef, Bernie Prosperi, who was my sous chef at the Marquis, introduced a new menu and changed the table settings. We're considering taking back the old restaurant space, now used for banqueting, and putting in a Starbucks alongside a new hotel restaurant.
One of the reasons I moved here last October was the increased focus on the food and beverage areas of the hotel. We're working on refining and improving the quality of customer expectations. Marketing of the restaurant in the past was poor; some people didn't even know we had somewhere to eat. Now we're working on collateral in the bedrooms and exterior signage.
Union issues are a big consideration in New York hotels. There have been a lot of problems in the past - not helped by there being a lot of transient managers, resulting in a lack of consistency and trust between staff and management. We're improving the situation by taking on managers who can connect with the staff and give them an opportunity to air difficult issues and be fair.
When I worked at the Waldorf Astoria in the mid-1980s, things were so bad that we didn't know from one day to the next if we were going to have any staff.
I have no set eating pattern. Like any chef, I tend to eat sporadically throughout the day. The only thing that is pretty constant is to grab the soup of the day just before lunch - it's generally a good benchmark of whether or not the kitchen is in good shape.
When I started off in the industry as a14-year-old, working in a Bristol hotel, all I wanted to do was be creative and travel.
At the time, becoming a chef de partie in a top hotel was my ultimate ambition - few British chefs before that had progressed much further. I become chef de partie at the Dorchester alongside Paul Gayler (now executive chef at the Lanesborough) and John Williams (now chef de cuisine at Claridge's).
I could have stayed in that position for life, but hotels have given me the opportunity to do so much more.
Interview by Janet Harmer
