Chef revelations: Chris Arkadieff, head chef, Wellcome Collection

What was your first job? Working on my family's honey farm with my father and brothers

What was your first job in catering? Working in a jazz bar in Australia

What do you normally have for breakfast? During the week, my honey and homemade granola; at the weekends, poached eggs on toast with a flat white coffee

What do you do to relax? Listen to my vinyl collection, which is getting out of control

Which is your favourite restaurant? Asador Etxebarri in Bizkaia, Spain

What's your favourite hotel? Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita in Italy

What's your favourite cuisine?

Which ingredient do you hate the most? Caraway seed - just the smell gives me a headache

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with? Anything produced without ethics or endangered. Refined grains are next on my refuse-to-cook list.

What flavour combinations do you detest? Salted caramel, but I must be the only one

Which person in catering have you most admired? Mark Hayward of the Dingley Dell pork farm; my parents, who produce the best honey; and Thomas Keller

Which person gave you the greatest inspiration? My mother, with her hard-working ethic

Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take? Fruit and nut chocolate

If not yourself, who would you rather have been? [Surfer] Kelly Slater

If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you would be now? On tour with my band! Or stonemason renovating.

Describe your ultimate nightmare Being told I will never be able to surf the ocean again

What irritates you most about the industry? Waste of food, over-production and food packaging - a lot of chefs waste a lot of blue roll and cling film

When did you last eat a hamburger? Last year in Australia, loaded with salad, bacon and a fried egg

What's your favourite book?Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky