Michael Gottlieb

Michael Gottlieb, proprietor, Smollensky's Restaurants and Café Spice, reveals all

1. What was your best subject at school?

Talmudic reasoning

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

My wife

3. What was your first job in catering?

General manager, London's Chicago Pizza Pie Factory

4. What do you normally have for breakfast?

Toasted bagel, butter, Jarlsberg cheese, tea, carrot juice (when my wife is in the mood)

5. What do you do to relax?

Shoot semi-automatic weapons

6. What is your favourite restaurant?

The Ivy in London

7. What daily newspaper do you read?

The Independent

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

Yves Montand

9. What was your first job?

Stock boy in a chemist

10. What is your favourite drink?

Judging by volume consumed, Diet Coke

11. What ingredient to you hate the most?

Can't imagine. I love all food

12. How would you best describe your desk?

Clean, neat and organised

13. Which people in catering have you most admired?

Everyone on my committee at the Restaurateurs Association of Great Britain

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

Who knows? Life is funny

15. Describe your ultimate nightmare

A restaurant empire with no high-quality people to run it

16. Where and when was your last holiday?

Texas, last September; all work, but felt like a holiday

17. Tell us a secret

I'm not as sure of myself as I seem

18. What irritates you most about hotels?

Nothing - I love even the "idea" of a hotel

19. Which person has given you the greatest inspiration?

Anatolii Sharanskii - author of Fear no evil and famous Russian refusenik

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

Texas, last September