John Benson-Smith

John Benson-Smith, executive chef of the Victoria & Albert Hotel, Manchester, reveals all

1. What was your best subject at school?

Art

2. What was your first job?

Cutting grass at camp sites

3. What was your first job in catering?

Apprentice chef in Beverley, Humberside

4. What do you normally have for breakfast?

Coco Pops and tea

5. What do you do to relax?

Cuddle with my wife

6. Which is your favourite restaurant?

L'Oasis in La Napoule, France, (when it was open), or one of Nico Ladenis's restaurants

7. What is your favourite drink?

Guinness or a gin and tonic

8. What ingredient do you hate most?

Physalis and artichoke

9. What do you always carry with you?

A black Ball Pentel fine point R50 pen

10. How would you describe your desk?

Badly designed, but immaculate and tidy - unless trashed by sous chefs

11. Which person in catering have you most admired?

Nico Ladenis

12. Which chefs have given you the greatest inspiration?

Louis Outhier, Michael Quinn and Peter Chandler

13. Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?

A ridiculously fast motorcycle

14. What daily newspapers do you read?

Daily Mail and Manchester Evening News (if I'm in favour)

15. If not yourself, who would you rather have been?

Mad Max

16. If you hadn't gone into catering, where do you think you would be now?

Either in advertising or marketing

17. Describe your ultimate nightmare?

Forgetting to buy a lottery ticket each week

18. Where and when was your last holiday?

Rhodes, Greece, in April 1994

19. Tell us a secret…

I have 400 stitches around my chest from a operation to remove a tumour

20. What irritates you most about hotels?

Many are, unfortunately, prehistoric dinosaurian hell-holes with poor attitudes to food and kitchens

21. When was the last time you had a hamburger?

I had a double whopper last week