Chef Revelations – Rob Kirby

What is your favourite drink?
Large Bombay Gin and FeverTree tonic

What is your favourite food/cuisine?
British, honest, unfussy

Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Polystyrene vegetarian sausages, yuk…

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Foams, froths and dragged purées - don't understand them

What do you always carry with you?
Phone and wallet ("don't always get it out," I hear them cry!)

Which person in catering have you most admired?
Marco Pierre White

Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?
Grandmother and grandfather - she cooked/he grew, happily married for more than 50 years

If not yourself, who would you rather have been?
Kylie Minogue

If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you would be now?
Not sure, I was a bad boy…

Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?
Shepherd's pie, Heinz beans, Crystal

What is your favourite prepared product?
Puff pastry

Tell us a secret…
I set the park on fire when I was 10 years old

What irritates you most about the industry?
Chefs that moan and don't do!

When did you last eat a hamburger?
Last week at Byron's, fab!

What's your favourite film?
Planes, Trains and Automobiles

What's your favourite book?
Kitchen Confidential

Who would be in your "fantasy" brigade?
Nigella Lawson - pantry/larder/taster; Andrew Turner, Wiltons - pie section; Alan Bird, Soho House - sauce and "Ivy/Scotts" classics section; Michael Coaker, University of West London - keeping-me-on-the-straight-and-narrow section; Claire "lovely" Clark - pastry; Mike Sunley, CEO, Lexington - pavlova section; Lexy food team and my boys ‘n' girls - you know who you all are!

If you had more time, what would you do?
Write another book, fish, and spend more time with my lovely family

Who would play you in a film?
Brad Pitt, we're very similar in the looks department…

Rob Kirby, chef-director, Lexington Catering