Night owl

Punjab Rathour once cooked with Marco Pierre White, but at 28 he's now in charge of catering at the Voodoo Lounge, on London's Leicester Square. Pruning his bonsai trees and mixing frisky house music on his decks keep him busy when he's not cooking or out clubbing.

The nature of where I work and how I play means I don't go to bed until 6 or 7am so I don't get up until noon. Then I'll have toast, juice and tea that's been simmered in a pot with cardamom, bay leaves, ginger and black tea - it's an Indian thing.

My two kids will be at school and my wife, Sadhna, will be teaching special-needs children, so I get up and play with my decks. I have been mixing for 10 years and like frisky house and dance music. Paul Warren and Alex P are two of my favourite DJs.

I take the train in from my home in Dulwich and grab a late lunch in Chinatown - duck, pork and rice with lots of chilli and sambal sauce is my favourite. I'll get to the club by 4pm.

Looking ahead

The events manager and I go through what we have on that evening, and look ahead to the next couple of days. I'll have a quick check through the deliveries that have come in earlier in the day and look at what everyone has prepared the night before.

I believe in marinating meats to concentrate the flavours. I've also just got a new toy in the form of a tandoor oven and I'm enjoying experimenting with that.

My team is all young, under 20, including my nephew Suk Singh, who is 17 and my sous chef. They come in around 5pm and we start serving at 5.30pm.

There's a 30-seat restaurant but there's also a bar menu for the three bars. And anyone in the bars can order from the à la carte menu, too, so we usually do another 50 covers a night from the bars.

The bar menu is available until 2am but the restaurant stops serving at 10.30pm. There's a private dining room for 14 and I could do a canapé party for 300 on any given night. At any given time I can have five or six menus on the go. We also feed the 35 staff working here between 6.30 and 8pm each night.

I leave around midnight, but the lads stay on to serve the bar menu and to prep for the next day and order supplies.

Because many of my friends are in the trade, I usually go out to a party or a club with them when I finish. I'm too wired to go home and my missus wouldn't appreciate me bouncing all over the bed.

If I do come home early I sometimes attend to my five bonsai trees. One of them is 150 years old and I like sitting and looking at them, cleaning, watering and pruning them. I like spending time with something that doesn't argue with me.

I am usually hungry about 5am and like to make sandwiches - but I get into real problems if I eat the ones my wife has prepared for her and the kids the next day.

More often I get home about 6am and crawl into bed just as she's getting up to go to work.

Just a minute…

What is your favourite restaurant? L'Escargot - I'll think of any excuse to go there, I love it.

What do you fear most? Going to see an upset customer and finding out what the problem is. The upside is I really enjoy making them feel better.

What is your ambition? I want to get out of England to a warm country. I love the Caribbean and would love to do an outside restaurant somewhere like that.

Voodoo Lounge

Leicester Square, London
Tel: 020 7434 0606

Seats: 30 in the restaurant, plus 50 in the three bars
Average spend: £35 in the restaurant and £15 in the bars
Private dining room: 14 seats at £80 a head

interview by Sara Guild