Turner takes off
It's sticky and humid in the middle of August, on one of the hottest days of the year. Brian Turner has just walked off the set of BBC TV's popular day-time show, Ready, Steady, Cook, after filming his second show of the day. He has endured the television lights for a couple of hours, as well as the tropical heat of the day, so is beginning to wilt - but not for long.
Having closed his eyes for a few minutes and gulped down some liquid refreshment, he jumps into a chauffeur-driven car that takes him from the studios in south-west London back to Turner's, the elegant Knightsbridge restaurant he has run as chef-proprietor for 11 years.
It is early evening and the first customers have already arrived at the 60-seat restaurant. Some nights Turner heads straight for the kitchen to run the service. Contrary to the widespread belief that TV chefs don't cook in their own restaurants, Turner does so at least once a week to relieve head chef Charlie Curran. If he is not in the kitchen, then he is likely to be out front helping restaurant manager Willie Johnstone to meet and greet customers. It is a role he assumes with great ease and naturalness.
The day has been a typical one for Turner. Rushing between the restaurant, television studios and TV locations around the country is the norm - frequently interspersed by meetings in his role as chairman of the Académie Culinaire de France. The enthusiasm and commitment he puts into his own business interests are mirrored by his work in encouraging the chefs of tomorrow - a significant factor in earning him the title of Chef of the Year at this year's Caterer & Hotelkeeper Awards.
Clearly a man who never intends to stand still, Turner earlier this year took on the additional role of executive chef and operations director for Orange Balloon, a new chain of restaurants being launched by former contract caterer Jerry Brand. The first opens in Twickenham on 3 November, with a second being unveiled two weeks later in Tonbridge, Kent. A third will launch in Dorking, Surrey, in the New Year, with a total of 12 - all in the south-east - up and running by the end of 1998. Others are then planned to open across the rest of the country at a rate of about 10 a year.
Workaholic
Having worked seven days a week for many years now and getting little more than five or six hours sleep a night, there does not seem to be a spare moment to take on such a big responsibility. But Turner is confident the time has never been better to explore such a new venture.
"Turner's is a nicely oiled machine now," he says. "We have lots of regular customers and a solid team of staff who cope well when I'm not around. I'm now able to turn my hand to other things."
It is not the first time Turner has expanded his business interests into other restaurants. At the end of the 1980s he bought and briefly operated two in London - Le Meridiana in the Fulham Road and Sud Ouest, just along the road from Turner's, behind Harrods. The acquisitions, which were made with a financial partner, who had also originally backed the setting up of Turner's, lost him a considerable amount of money. "I was younger and more naive then and not in a position to expand. Now I'm more settled and understand life a lot more."
Initially, the involvement with Orange Balloon will provide no financial risk for Turner. But in December 1998, he will have the option to buy 10% of shares in the business, at a price that has already been agreed. Brand is financing Orange Balloon from the sale of his contract catering company Russell & Brand, in which he had a 76% stake, to US hospitality giant Marriott for £15.8m. Funding of £5.5m is in place for the development of the chain. For 51-year-old Turner, Orange Balloon is an opportunity to make some serious money before his retirement.
Brand's approach to Turner came out of the blue. "I've been asked to get involved with many new operations over the years - but after sitting down and listening to the ideas, had previously dismissed them all," he says. "But Jerry seemed to offer the right opportunity at the right time. The idea of creating a chain of restaurants offering quality food at reasonable prices in towns and suburbs outside London seemed to fit my profile."
Turner's prime role is to operate and control standards of food and staff - in both the kitchen and restaurant - something that he hopes to achieve by employing the right staff and ensuring they receive thorough training. In the long term, chef apprenticeship schemes may be set up with different colleges around the country.
On the food front, Turner will be responsible for how it is purchased, cooked, sold and served. While he is reluctant to define its style too tightly, he describes it as being honest and culinary, rather than fashion-led.
Lunch is to be an informal affair, with shoppers, families and business people eating side-by-side. A selection of sandwiches (such as ciabatta and spicy salami, baguette filled with tuna and coriander mayonnaise, and rump steak sandwich with horseradish dressing), will be offered alongside salads (for example, Emmental, rocket and cherry tomato salad with basil vinaigrette) and main dishes (for example, half honey-roasted coquelet and couscous or spring rolls filled with curried prawns on a shredded vegetable salad).
In the evening, the mood of the restaurants will change, both in the way they look and the style of food served. The relaxed look by day with rattan chairs and wooden tables is to be replaced at night with a more elegant and sophisticated feel created by the dimming of lights, dark-blue covers over the chairs and cloths on the tables.
"At night we'll be offering an element of fine dining," says Turner. "The gap has been too wide for too long between the quality restaurants used by a guy who entertains in London on business and those he wants to take his wife to when he gets out of town. He wants food of the same quality - but at half the price - and we'll be able to do that with an average dinner with wine costing £25-30 per head."
The à la carte menu in the evening will offer a mix of traditional and modern dishes, with influences from around the world. Starters are to include an average of nine dishes, such as avocado and Morecambe Bay shrimps on little gem salad; goat's cheese, onion and tomato tartlet in thyme pastry, and Thai-spiced scallop stir-fry.
The selection of 12 main-course dishes may offer crispy duck confit and Madeira jus; deep-fried young squid with lime and coriander mayonnaise; papardelle in a grain mustard and cheese sauce; and grilled chicken breast with lemon and tarragon on a warm mustard potato salad. Among the selection of side orders will be garlic mashed potatoes, chilli noodles and tomato salad with red onion dressing.
Desserts are to be traditional and comforting, such as chocolate and strawberry pavlova, prune and armagnac tarts with crème anglaise, and rhubarb and ginger crumble.
Saturday and Sunday lunches are expected to be family-orientated with children able to choose from a special selection of simple, traditional dishes, as well as being encouraged to look at the main menu. Freshly prepared creamy tomato soup, goujons of fish and chipped potatoes, roast chicken with roast potatoes, and apple pie with ice-cream are to be offered, alongside kids' favourites such as sausages and chipped potatoes. All these dishes are served with the vegetable of the day.
"Our children's portions will be sensible in size," says Turner. "We've looked at a lot of children's menus in other restaurants and found that most of them were serving portions that were far too big. Too much food is being sent back in these restaurants and wasted."
Initially, the menus are to be identical at each outlet. But once each restaurant is running smoothly, there may be an opportunity for each head chef to operate a core menu, around which their own individual dishes can be added. The number of chefs in each unit will vary according to the size of the restaurant.
Turner has run his own restaurant for 11 years, so setting up a chain of eateries with a strong corporate identity has caused him some frustrations over the past few months. "Jerry and I don't always see eye to eye - I'm not a corporate man and he's not a restaurateur," says Turner. "But at the end of the day, we both understand what people want when they go out to eat."
TV career
While much of Turner's attention is currently devoted to Orange Balloon, his involvement in Turner's remains as high-profile as ever and his increasingly successful and lucrative TV career continues apace. He has no doubts it was television that saved his restaurant during the recession of the early 1990s.
"The Gulf War broke out in 1991 and Turner's was badly hit," he says. "I was also up to my eyes in debt. Restaurants all around me were going bust. Then television came along and offered me a tremendous opportunity. Every penny I earned from TV then went back into Turner's and kept it afloat. Now the restaurant is standing on its own two feet again."
Having just completed filming a 12-part series for Anglia TV called Out to lunch with Brian Turner, due to start screening in November, his present other regular commitments include Ready Steady Cook and appearances every Monday on This Morning for Granada TV. An approachable Yorkshire manner and down-to-earth advice, combined with enthusiasm and classically based recipes make Turner a popular chef among viewers.
He shrewdly recognises that the TV appearances bring valuable business into Turner's. It has also helped him secure a variety of promotional work, the most high-profile of which is with Tesco.
In February next year he is launching the Brian Turner sauce range, exclusive to Tesco, along with fellow TV chef Rick Stein, chef-proprietor of the Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall. The selection of four sauces, which include bordelaise, Madeira, mushroom, and tarragon, are made to Turner's recipes, using traditional stocks. He will test samples of the sauces weekly to ensure his standards are adhered to.
Such a diverse career has taken even Turner by surprise. "My expectation on arriving in London from Leeds in 1962 was that I would end up as a head chef somewhere. I'm pleased with the way things have gone."
