The Grosvenor guv'nor

Although Simon Radley was appointed to the post of executive chef at the Chester Grosvenor only two years ago, his relationship with the property dates back much further. At the age of 21, he held the position of chef de partie for seven months, and then, between the ages of 23 and 29, he was head chef of the hotel's fine-dining restaurant, the Arkle.

Radley then spent four years away from the hotel: as head chef at New Hall in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, and later at Nunsmere Hall in Sandiway, Cheshire. The headhunters brought him back to the Chester Grosvenor to fill the top job when long-time executive chef Paul Reed left in 1998. But he rejects the suggestion that it was a backwards step. "I've always felt comfortable at this hotel. It's a very special place," he says.

The five-star, 85-bedroom Chester Grosvenor is indeed unique in that it is the only hotel owned by the Duke of Westminster's property company, Grosvenor Estates. Managing director Jonathan Slater runs it for the company on a day-to-day basis. "They [the Duke and Slater] want this to be the finest provincial hotel in the country," says Radley. "That is their agenda and it's very important to me - there's no point in working somewhere that's content with second best."

A big draw for Radley, in returning to the Grosvenor, was the size of the job. As executive chef, he oversees a 28-strong brigade, which cooks not only for the50-seat Arkle, but also the 150-seat La Brasserie restaurant and five function rooms within the property (the largest can seat 250). He is also responsible for the hotel's catering contract at Knowsley Hall (the Earl of Derby's stately home in Prescot, Merseyside, which is rented to the public for functions). The contract was won just before Radley returned to the Chester Grosvenor and involves catering for events of up to 200 people - weddings, banquets, conferences and the like.

"Concentrating on the food in a single restaurant wasn't enough for me any more. I wanted a bigger beast, more of a challenge. That's why I took this job, there's always something different going on," he explains. "At full stretch on a busy Saturday we can be doing up to 600 covers at various functions here and at Knowsley, we can do 180 covers at lunch in La Brasserie, 100 in the evening and 50 in the Arkle as well."

The Arkle, which has held a Michelin star since 1990 (won when Radley was heading it up at just 25), has changed significantly since his return, he believes. He admits to running a tough regime, but considers that it is reaping rewards in terms of quality.

"When I got back here two years ago, the Arkle boys were having a jolly. They were rolling in and rolling out and it was just a job to them. They weren't putting in the effort the establishment deserved," he says. "But that's changed. Everything in the restaurant is cooked to order now - absolutely everything - and there's more attention to detail. It might be harder and take longer, but the end product is far better and, interestingly, the boys are really excited by it."

The style of food served in the Arkle is more refined now, Radley argues. He admits that when he used to work there in the 1990s he was guilty of some "fussy, overcomplicated" dishes, whereas now the thrust is to use top-quality ingredients, cooked to perfection and simply served.

"The duck miniatures main course is just about the most complicated dish on the menu," he says. "Most of the dishes are far simpler. The sea bass with essence of sweet pepper, polenta and goats' cheese gnocchi, for example, is a good illustration of how clean and simple our food can be. Well-cooked fish, served with a nice sauce. That's all."

Another example of simplicity is Radley's current favourite on the menu - braised pork cheek with summer vegetables and local cider. He loves this dish because it's made with a relatively cheap cut of meat - "any doughnut can cook a fillet steak, it takes more skill to work with the cheaper cuts" - and is full of flavour.

The pork cheek is soaked and then braised very slowly in cider and presented on the plate surrounded by vegetables. "It sounds dead plain and it is - there's nothing simpler or more satisfying."

Other personal favourites from the menu are the starter ravioli of Gascony snails with fennel and anise, and the chocolate and pistachio soufflé dessert. For the ravioli dish, dots of puréed fennel are placed on a piece of pasta and the snails, which have been braised in a meat stock, are put on top. A little star anise is put on the centre snail and the dish is garnished with roasted fennel and dressed with reduced braising liquor.

Radley's chocolate marquise with griottines flambées was put on the menu in response to customer requests for more chocolate puddings. But Radley likes it because it involved experimentation to get it right. "We serve pistachio ice-cream actually in the soufflé and we had to play around with it so that we got the right sweetness in the ice-cream and so that it didn't melt before the soufflé mixture was cooked," he says.

Experimentation is something Radley does a lot. It is only through trying things out that innovative dishes can be developed, he argues. "I'm largely self-taught and I've never been frightened by ingredients and playing with them. That's the only way to learn cooking techniques," he says. "I think that's the trouble with lots of chefs today - they're afraid of failure, so they don't experiment. They seem to think that if a dish isn't in one of Marco's books, they can't put it on the menu."

Radley is so confident in the quality of food he serves at the Arkle that he believes it is close to winning a second Michelin star. Indeed, he confesses that if it had been the only outlet he operated, he would be disappointed if it did not have a second star already.

However, much of his energy has to go into La Brasserie (which regularly feeds 1,000 people a week) and into banqueting. He is just as passionate about these aspects of his job as the Arkle, though, and frequently gets stuck into cooking for them too.

Radley sees banqueting as a particularly exciting challenge. His aim is nothing less than to serve restaurant-quality food at private functions. With this in mind, he has transformed the operation over the past two years so that all dishes are now cooked à la minute. He also writes menus individually for each function, rather than offering a range of set menus, and regularly puts on dishes that appear in the Arkle.

"That's what I'm pushing for in banqueting, for people not to see much difference with the Arkle. I want the same standard across the board. There's nothing more satisfying for me than taking something we've made for a table of four in the restaurant and serving it at a function for 120," he says.

Radley's style is clearly more hands-on than many executive chefs. He admits to spending as little time as possible in his office, preferring to get his hands dirty. And he turns down judging of cookery competitions and attending industry functions because he can't bear to be away from the hotel.

"I don't crave having my name in lights and can't understand those chefs who spend their time swanning around judging competitions," he says. "What matters to me is that my job is done right and that we're serving the best food we can. I'm spending longer hours in the kitchen now than I ever have done and that's what I enjoy."