David Wilson

David Wilson, chef-proprietor of the Peat Inn, near Cupar, Fife, reveals all

1. What was your best subject at school?

English

2. What was your first job?

Sales trainee with an engineering distributor

3. What was your first job in catering?

Commis chef at the Pheasant Inn, Keyston, Cambridgeshire, with Somerset Moore

4. What do you normally have for breakfast?

Yoghurt, toast and honey

5. What do you do to relax?

Listen to music (jazz and classical)

6. Which is your favourite restaurant?

Troisgros, Roanne, France

7. What is your favourite drink?

Good red Burgundy

8. What ingredient do you hate the most?

Chilli

9. What do you always carry with you?

My credit cards

10. How would you best describe your desk?

A mess

11. Which person in catering have you most admired?

Egon Ronay for his campaigning work to raise the standard of cooking in the UK

12. Which person has given you the greatest inspiration?

Michel Guérard

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

A piano

14. Which daily newspapers do you read?

The Herald and the Scotsman

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

Bob Hope

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

Retired and rich

17. Describe your ultimate nightmare?

Being told I must never cook again

18. Where and when was your last holiday?

Cannes, France, November 1994

19. Tell us a secret…

I am really a very shy person

20. What irritates you most about hotels?

Noise, particularly early in the morning

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

At a barbecue on board a cruiser on the River Forth, to celebrate the centenary of the Forth Rail Bridge