Alex Yates

You’ve achieved an enviable reputation at a young age – are you naturally talented, had an inspirational figure as a child or just darned lucky? I’d say it’s all 3. There’s one thing I don’t talk about, but I will – I’m severely autistic. I have never made a big deal about it, but at school they said I was going to fail basically – that wound me up. They said I would work in a shop and that would be it, so I hated school. Were you brought up nearby? In Dartford, I went to West Hill and then Longfield Academy – it was a good school but I didn’t fit in and after school I would knock on restaurant doors asking to work. I started in kitchens at 14. My dad worked for Balls Brothers, a wine merchants in London and near enough every Saturday he would work in town so me and my brother would fight to go with him. I loved it. I’d be in the kitchen, stocking up fridges, doing anything I wanted, it was great. I really enjoyed working in the kitchen and people treated me like an adult. When I was at school I was never treated like that. It was never, oh you’re this age, you need to go home. Some nights I wouldn’t get back from London, I’d literally sleep on the restaurant floor. I’d ring my dad to say I’m not going to make it back and he’d ask if I wanted a lift but I’d say, no, it’s not a problem. On Fridays I’d go straight from school up to Mayfair to work – it was brilliant, I was bouncing to leave school to do that.

I remember sitting on the restaurant floor, with my head in my hands, on the phone to my wife saying, ‘What have I done? I’ve left a really good job. I’ve put all our money in. I’ve got 125 people looking at me for an answer…’

Being in the pub is like being in your front room, there are pictures of your family everywhere. It looks as though a lot of them were involved in food and drink. Yeah, my grandmother was very much involved in this business. Is that grandmother Jane who was born in the brewery house – what a fantastic story?! That’s right – her father was a Bowley, that’s where the name comes from. He ran pubs across Kent and that’s why she felt it was important to keep the pub going, as a hub for the community. My dad and I weren’t publicans, he worked in good bars, but they were wine bars and I’ve never worked in a pub, so we were clueless about how to keep beer but she knew. Is she hands on with the business? I can’t even tell you. She won’t mind me saying she’s 85. She makes all the crockery for the restaurant. She makes the crockery?! Yeah. She made these jugs here. Oh, so she’s a potter. Yeah, but she also made these cushions, she makes the chutney for the restaurant and also helps with the Christmas puddings every year. If you told her to slow down, she would tell you where to stick it. Bowleys is definitely a family business then. Massively, my wife Grace and I now run the restaurant together she runs the front of house and I run the kitchen – we really live and breathe Bowleys. My father’s here probably every night. He works for a different business now but his passion is still wine. So, he’s happy we’re in an industry that’s close to his heart. If he was here with us, he would say he’s now living his life through what I’m doing. We’d joked about running a business for years, but it happened by chance. We were on holiday in Germany and decided to have a cigar with a few ports and ended up saying we should open a restaurant! At the time we lived down the road from here and knew it was empty, so I phoned the estate agent and asked for a viewing. We put in an offer but it was rejected and for 2 years nothing happened but then we get a phone call to say the community was going to buy the pub and would we like to run it? We were like, why not, but never thinking it would actually happen. A year later they phoned again to say they were getting the keys in a week’s time…and that was it.

So, did the pub close down and get bought by developers? There were 2 businesses before that but they failed. Then a developer bought it and applied to build a house in the car park and convert the pub. She got denied 3 times because the community literally said, you’re not doing it, we want our village pub, so eventually she made a deal to sell it to them. That conversation about taking over a local pub must happen in villages across the country but it takes guts to actually go for it. How much money did they raise? Half a million. Wow, Trottiscliffe isn’t big. It’s tiny but a lot of the shareholders live outside the village. They started work on the building and the whole place got gutted near enough but the community were like DIY SOS. It was insane. The BBC and ITV turned up one day. We had a BBC van in the car park and ITV out the front. It was incredible. People were handing cheques over on TV. We hit our target and it was all going really well. The building was getting done up, everyone was getting on and we were getting more investors. We had an opening date but then, the Friday before, Boris was on TV saying we’re shutting down for Covid. Oh, of course. That was a big lesson. When we jumped into this I was so naïve. I’m the youngest in the family but I pushed this forward. I put my family’s money, along with 125 investor’s, into a business that couldn’t open. It was a big, big lesson. Were you scared? Terrified. We only found out a week beforehand so we had the place stocked with food and alcohol. Some of it got taken back but a lot went down the drain. Did you have staff in place then as well? I had a general manager, sous chef, pot wash, waiters and the worst thing was we didn’t even hit the furlough money. You had to be employed for 3 weeks before lockdown, so we just missed it – it was awful. I remember sitting on the restaurant floor, with my head in my hands, on the phone to my wife saying, ‘What have I done? I’ve left a really good job. I’ve put all our money in. I’ve got 125 people looking at me for an answer. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ What did she say? ‘What can we do?’ We actually got engaged the day after we got the keys! She was a rock through the whole thing. Did she support you emotionally then? Massively – the family and I worked together to decorate throughout the first lockdown but it was a kick in the teeth because I was always hoping we’d open the next week. Then we opened up and it felt great but then we locked down again. I’ve never had depression but that’s the closest I’ve ever got to it, without Grace by my side I would of never got back in the kitchen, I couldn’t do anything, everything I tried was making a loss and it was actually better to keep the doors shut but I had to do something, more for my mental state, I had to do something to keep myself busy in the kitchen.

So, we had about a year of absolute carnage during full lockdown and then we had another half a year where we could only serve outside, but gradually it’s got easier and easier. The reason I started this was to build the Bowleys reputation with my wife and my family by my side. I want accolades, I want a Michelin. I’m very driven on that. I tell customers that I’ve followed the Michelin guide like other people follow the Bible! I’ve worked with amazing chefs who’ve got stars and now our task is to get there. We’re now in the Michelin guide which was a great achievement. Does that mean you have achieved a certain standard? Yeah. The first review we had was Michelin – we’d been on the BBC, in newspapers talking about what we were doing but nothing to do with our food but then Michelin came. Do you know when they’re coming? No, but a couple of months later, they tweeted about the food they had and said Bowleys had gone up a notch. All the chefs I knew in London were calling to ask what I was doing? Things are now getting bigger and bigger. When we opened, I was more worried about the restaurant but I’ve now fallen in love with the pub too. I love the community. They’ve supported me massively. We’re now rearing our own animals locally and there’s also a cottage across the road which we’re looking to turn into accommodation. I never say no. So, you’re still not saying ‘no’ to anything? Where does that confidence come from? My family, my mother is honestly very driven. Work is all we really know, although it doesn’t actually feel as though I work – I genuinely just enjoy it. I’ve been working 7 days a week – we’re shut on Mondays but I’ll still be here getting the paperwork done.

Your family obviously told you to not give up with school. Yeah, but saying that, I did skive off sometimes but that was always to work, not to go to McDonald’s. I skived off to work and that’s also what I did on the weekends. If I wasn’t working with my dad, I went to college to learn cookery. So, as soon as school finished you’d run out and go knocking on doors to ask for work. Exactly, and the scarier the better. Some of the chefs were crazy, tall chef hats and tunnel vision. You’d look at them and there was no emotion whatsoever and I’d go knock on their back door and ask to work. I’d work for free and what I love is that last month I had two chefs do the same thing here – knock on the back door and ask to work for free. It’s a cycle that keeps going.

It’s amazing so many people want to work in kitchens…it’s tough with really unsociable hours! For anyone not in the know, do you think the film Boiling Point is accurate?! Tell me about it! It sounds as though you have a happy kitchen though? Definitely. I hate aggression. That’s the reputation – it’s the Gordon Ramsay thing. People ask me if it’s that bad and I say no, it’s worse but to run kitchens like that, you have to run them like the army. You’re working all hours, you’re tired, stressed and the heat is a killer – they’re intense places. And usually small. Very small. When people go into our kitchen, they say, you cook it all from here?! But if you like intensity, speed and the adrenalin rush, they’re great. I work 16 hour days but if I sat in an office for 8 hours, it would be the longest day of my life. My days are so quick. Some nights where we’ve had a wedding, I’ve been up ‘till 5 in the morning making a cake but that’s not a drag, it just needs to be perfect. Now your pursuing accolades, are you worried that it will be different in the kitchen? I am. The problem is, you aim to be the top but how long can you keep going at that rate? Many chefs get 1 star and then push for 2 but it’s hard to maintain. One of the chefs I worked for lost a star and I remember being told he was in an awful way, but then he moved to another restaurant and got 1 back but his wife wasn’t happy at all, she was upset because she was fearful – she had just gone through that and now he could lose it all again. You almost set yourself up for a fall. I enjoy my job and I hope I always will. You said that you may have to manage your team in a different way in the future. Would that be possible? Slowly. It’s down to experience. When I was younger I couldn’t understand why the chefs were so stressed but now I do – I’m still friendly in my kitchen but I’m not going out for a beer with them after work and that will continue the further I go. We have good staff retention here but people still leave. They stay for 2 years but they want to better themselves so it means you’re constantly having to get new staff in and you learn that the only reason the place runs as it does is because of you.

I read that you’ve got a young team. Were you concerned about having older chefs around you? I’ve got nothing against older chefs. The problem is they wouldn’t give me their respect. Now they would because I’ve earned it, but not when I first opened and I thought I’m not doing that. The reason I’ve done well is because I’m passionate about it and didn’t get much from school, I’ve had to drive myself. Every chef in my kitchen would say the same thing. They may have had hard times at home or school, some are severely dyslexic, whatever it is, they wouldn’t get a chance anywhere else. One of our team has got Tourette’s but you have to give people a chance. A lot of people don’t get that chance. If I didn’t smash on those doors – or I followed what I was told at school, I wouldn’t have got the chance.

It must be an interesting environment with such a mix of people. It is, but the thing is they don’t have any bad habits. I send all my staff on Stages, that’s work experience in another chef’s kitchen. My sous chef has recently been to 2 London restaurants. Is that a common thing? Yeah, but not for the head chef to plan it, but some people here kick back because they don’t feel they can do it. Our sous chef got into Young Chef of the Year – she didn’t want to apply but I was like, no, we’re doing it. You’ve got to push them and then when they do it, they love it. I don’t want them to stay here forever because I want them to better themselves. What I love is that everyone that leaves here comes back – my sous came back saying, I’ve learned this, I’ve learned that, do you want to see? I said show me, show me and this makes us better.

Working 7 days a week, how do you find the time to experiment with new dishes? When I started I’d go to the food markets. Even to this day, when I’m angry the wife will know where I am – in a market or supermarket walking up and down, getting ideas. That’s how I deal with my stress but back to what we were saying, when I was younger, I’d just go to the markets and then I’d think, right, duck, what goes with that but not thinking about what was in season or what was available. Now I work with farmers. Our butcher may pop in and we’ll have a pint together and then go to the farm and he’ll say, right Alex, I’ve got that Dexter and that beef there and I’m like, okay, we’ll get that now and that in a couple months. I’ll then ask what else he’s got and that’s how we make a dish, I see what’s available and work with that. I was driving home last week and saw some fennel growing by the road and thought, we need fennel on the menu, so I designed a dish around that.

Do your chefs contribute to the dishes? Head chefs usually come up with all of the dishes but I hate that. If I’ve got a dish I put it out, ask everyone’s opinion and we work as a team to refine it. It’s the same for them, if they’ve got an idea they put it forward. Do other chefs work in isolation because they want ownership? I guess so, all I give a damn about is producing the best food I can and improving. For example, we serve an amuse-bouche and originally I put them on plates but now they’re served in small boxes made by my sous chef’s step-dad. That’s exactly what we’re about here. Another example is our petit fours. I love Lego – again, very autistic! I used to bring a box of chocolate Lego bricks to the table and say, ‘play and enjoy’. Now I’ve gone a step further – you know those Chinese boxes with multiple openings? We literally put a box on the table with different drawers, different openings and the diners discover where the things are? My next venture is to get some knives made. If you order beef or lamb, a waiter will come to the table with a box of different knives, none of them the same, and you can select which one you want. Very French. Very traditional. We want to bring that here. Do you enjoy that playfulness? I love it, but I don’t mess around with the food. If I’ve got some baby leeks straight from the farm, we give them a wash and put them in a salsa verde. I’m not going to make them into a puree. It’s a bloody leek that a farmer has grown. Let’s taste it.

With that field to fork mentality, have you noticed an improvement in flavours? Yeah, and my palette has also improved with age. Are you literally tasting all the time? I’ll tell you something, at 8am you do not want to be trying a beef tartare or a black garlic emulsion but that’s what happens. Chefs come at me with spoons and it’s try, try, try. I’m like, hold up, give me some water, then try, try, try…all day. So, your palette is being continuously refined? It adapts. There was a chef who got diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. He was a 2 Michelin star but could never get to 3. He slowly got his taste back after his illness and then got 3 stars because he was tasting things for the first time again, as if they were brand new. That’s why I never smoke, I might have a cigar once a year but that’s it and I rarely drink. I don’t want those things to affect my taste buds, it scares me. I’m always burning my taste buds though!

Getting back to the photos in here. This one is of Mr. Bowley? Yeah. The Bristow and Bowley families married into each other. They still get along to this day but no one’s got the Bowley name any more. I’m a Yates. There were 2 gentlemen, apparently they tossed a coin to decide which one would go into a laundry business and which one into brewing. I know which I’d prefer. Yeah, but saying that, the laundry business did better than the brewery. They did the laundry for the Royal Family so made a lot of money, but the families stayed very close and helped each other out.

You can’t please everyone. Of course you can’t, but I try. I seriously try.

Your dishes look beautiful. Would you say you’re creative? If I wasn’t a chef, I would be a photographer. When I was younger, if I wasn’t cooking I’d be taking photos. I’d be on the floor in the middle of London trying to get an angle right, waiting for hours to get the right shot. Very autistic again, but it’s the same with food. You wait and it takes time. Does your autism mean you’re gifted in different ways? I think it does. The more you get to know me, the more you learn that I have no emotion. I love my wife and family, don’t get me wrong, but that emotion doesn’t come first and I hate social events. Because you feel uncomfortable? I’m good with customers but it’s like Bowie back in the day. He had loads of personalities. I’m like that. So you wear a mask? Yeah. Even the talk we’re having now…it’s something I hate doing but I push myself and it makes me better for doing it. I employ a lot of autistic people because, firstly they don’t tell me they need to be off every Saturday, but also they’re much happier about what they’re doing and they don’t bring luggage with them. Do they bring a different type of luggage? Yeah, but it’s good luggage. We had a girl working here who was severely autistic and hated textures. Everyone was confused as to why I had employed her but I thought we’d hit gold dust. She’d try a sauce and would know exactly what had gone into it and what textures would work better. It was insane but no other business would see that as a gift. For me it was brilliant. Our competitors won’t do that, they’re frightened of difference. I employ everyone here because of their personality. They all have their own things they bring to the table. If everyone was the same it would be a dull world, wouldn’t it? Something we’ve started is for our chefs to take their food out, I’m pushing them out of the door telling them they’ve got to do it because I had to. The passion they show is huge. All our reviews say, we met the chefs. We saw passion. That’s great for the diner’s – talking to the chef always feels special. They love it and we also do a lot to make stuff happen for our diners. If someone doesn’t like anything on the menu, we’ll ask what they do like. It may take a bit longer but we’ll make something. I enjoy change. Chefing is all about that. The other night we had a power cut at seven o’clock on a Saturday evening with a full restaurant. So straight away, let’s get the barbecue out. I cooked everything outside. I was burnt to heck and I said to the staff, bloody hell, what was that about, but it shows that you never give up. I bet you learned a lot that night. Oh yeah…get a generator. Yeah, ok, but apart from that! Good skills you’ll use again. Our Sommelier was giving samples of wine away just to save us time – the customers must have thought it was amazing – sitting in candlelight, great atmosphere because the music’s gone and everyone’s talking. That is when you know you’ve got an amazing team. You’re like, that shouldn’t have worked but it did. Any other restaurant that I’ve worked in would have shut their doors. It was the hardest night but I’ve never been so proud.

We could talk all day but I suspect you’ve got lots to do, so one final question, what makes a good service? No service is the same. I get wound up when a service is the same with no improvement. The moment we are comfortable we’ve lost it, because our neighbour, a local restaurant, they will literally
be ahead of us. We’ve got to keep on guard constantly. The worst thing for me and actually the hardest thing in this whole business, is reviews. I am fine with criticism because that’s what makes me better but sometimes you get reviews that aren’t true. My wife thinks I’m crazy because every night before I go to bed, I’ll go through all the review sites, go through all the emails. I hate it when people say we’re chef led. We’re not, we’re customer led, so if a customer isn’t happy or they’ve not left thinking wow, then we’ve failed. You can’t please everyone. Of course you can’t, but I try. I seriously try.

Editor’s Notes

From time to time we ask our interviewees to provide a top playlist to allow us to get some further insight into their character – Alex was only too keen to supply his top tracks that he enjoys on any occasion but especially whilst he’s creating in the kitchen.