Scott Goss

I was surprised you were happy to meet on a Monday as it’s very often a chef’s day off? No, I work on Mondays and they’re great for me because I can just get things done. I like to do things like stripping the stoves down, cleaning them up and putting them back together again. Do you still like that part of being in the kitchen? Very much so, yeah, but just not on at 1.30 in the morning on a Saturday after service.

Let’s start off with a tricky question. In your opinion, is cookery a creative or a technical skill? Creative. Ah well, cookery itself is technical but, the creative process of achieving what you want to put on the plate is where the creativity comes in, so I guess it’s a blend of the two. Everyone can have a creative idea, but not everyone can execute it. I was having a similar conversation with somebody the other day, about how everyone falls in love with chefs because of their passion – how passionate they are about what they cook. I was saying to them that you need to remember that there is no passion in the early days when you’re just getting beasted. There is no passion then, it’s pure fear. The passion comes when you’ve learnt to actually cook. Let’s talk about that time in your life, when you were starting out. I am always a little confused as to what draws young people to work in kitchens – it’s very hard work, with long hours and it’s often a naturally pressured environment. Yeah, but remember that the world is changing for the better, kitchens are changing for the better and I’d like to think that I’m part of the generation that is making the change. Tell me what the change is. Nobody needs to come to work anymore and be scared. Let’s just say that not too long ago, there wasn’t much consideration for people management. It’s difficult because I actually loved that, I fell in love with the heat, the aggression and the sense that some of the team in the kitchen gave the impression that they weren’t quite wired right. I wanted to be a part of that, I wanted in. I didn’t want a nine ‘till five job which stuck to the rules. People often talk about the long hours but if you’re doing something that you love doing, then take the clock off the wall, right? But you must remember, and I can’t stress this enough, there is no gun to anybody’s head here, you can just walk out at any time if it’s not for you, whereas in the good old days…There would have been a gun? Not quite, but you were made to feel a failure if you walked out, you weren’t big or strong enough, but all of that has gone now, that doesn’t exist anymore – well, it doesn’t exist in my kitchen anyway. So, what happens if a chef isn’t hitting the grade in your opinion? Then I would have a conversation with them because what is incredible now, is the amazing variety of catering that is out there. It’s a huge sector so if this isn’t quite right for someone, maybe they should consider catering in a different environment, whether that be in the army, on cruise ships or maybe even as a private chef.

Where would you rank your kitchens here, because there’s more than one of course, in terms of stress levels? What does a normal service look like, is it full-on? It is full-on, but whether I like it or not, I’m now a bit of an old dog. I’ve done my 10,000 hours, so there’s nothing that I haven’t really seen before. It’s very unlikely that a service is going to shock or scare me now, I know how to deal with challenging situations. I can sense when that is going to happen now, so I know how to adjust things if needed. And how many are there in your brigade here? We’re a brigade of 10 chefs. So, on a Saturday or Sunday, they will all be here? Yeah, everyone’s on then. But in order to manage the expectations of the working environment in this day and age, roles are very carefully defined and managed so everything runs as smoothly as possible. We do have two kitchens, but the one downstairs which is very bistro brasserie just does lunches. There are no starters, mains and desserts there, just beautiful classics, things like coq au vin or a beautiful fish pie. One chef and a porter can easily do 40 covers there and while that’s happening, there will be a couple of chefs up here doing the mise en place, getting set for the evening. Every restaurant would like to be open every day for lunch and dinner but those days don’t really exist anymore. For a variety reasons lunches are now less extravagant. For one thing, so many more people are now working from home so you have to adapt, because the wage cost to remain open at all times, just doesn’t make sense now. Hospitality is facing challenges from all directions and the cost of ingredients at the moment is through the roof. Thankfully, I think there’s enough knowledge out there now for customers to understand why our prices have had to rise, whereas, maybe two or three years ago they didn’t understand why that was happening. What I found interesting at that time, was that it looked as though quality restaurants were really trying to absorb those price rises in order to maintain customer levels. It was the eateries a bit further down the food chain, so to speak, that seemed to be passing them on. And we are still really trying to maintain that careful balance between quality and value for money here, whilst at the same time ensuring the restaurant is busy enough to have that buzz, because that’s incredibly important too.

At the start of our conversation, I asked you if you felt cooking was creative. The reason I asked, was because for people not involved in a creative job, it can often be perceived as being relatively easy. Do you think cooking is easy? Is cooking easy? That’s a difficult question. No, it’s not easy but it is fulfilling. When you finish that amazing service and you look up and down the line and you’re thinking, that was a battle but job done, it’s incredible. You walk into the dining room and there’s a buzz, everybody’s happy and people stop you to make comments about how they’ve enjoyed the food – I’m getting goosebumps just talking about it. Don’t get me wrong, some services are harder than others, that’s the beauty of the beast. We all have bad days and those moments where we wonder if we want to do this anymore. Do you ever fear that you may fall out of love with food? 100%, I can’t sit here and lie and say it has never happened. I’ve romanced about moving to the West Country or living on the beach but I could never really imagine myself doing anything else. I love the people, I love the restaurant, I love the stress of getting out of bed in the morning and I love what we are achieving. But that’s just my take, I need all of those things, otherwise, I wouldn’t be me.

Earlier, you mentioned how chefs are now admired and celebrated, very often they have a bit of a celebrity status. Yes, that was really triggered by the rise in TV food shows and the dawn of social media, I guess. Both of which you have done your fair share of appearances on. What was the first TV show that you appeared on? That was the F-Word with Gordon Ramsay, it was a Christmas special. I can’t remember the year but I want to say around 2010 and I had only really just started my first head chef role. Looking back at that now, because I was so young and raw, I didn’t really care about things like the cameras being there. You have got a smile on your face thinking about it, are those good memories or funny ones? They’re great memories. I’ve always been one of those people, and still am to this day, that will pretty much say yes to anything. One of the best books that I have ever read was by Richard Branson and in that, he says that one of the keys to his success was saying yes to absolutely everything, even if he didn’t know how it would work out.

And you’ve done a few more shows since then including The Great British Menu. Do you enjoy those kinds of things? Absolutely. I was speaking to Gary Rhodes once and he said, remember Scotty, you’re there to make a brilliant TV programme. They’re always difficult but that’s part of why you’re there. You turn up and share your menu with them, the menu that you’ve put your heart and soul into and they’re so positive and really helping you out. It’s not until you start filming, that you discover that what looks to be an extractor unit above where you’re working is actually full of lights – very hot lights, but the team didn’t mention that to you. So the beautiful buttery pastry, which is at the heart of your dish, ends up melting through your hands but I think they like that, you know. I could tell that they were trying to push a few buttons, seeing if they could make the big guy crack? And did you crack? No, because I could see what they were up to and I thought I’m not playing that game. But look, at the end of the day, these things are all great life experiences and none of them will do any harm to your business. Going back to the Gordon Ramsay show, it was on Channel 4 at 7 o’clock in the evening on something like the 23rd of December and from that moment on, the phone literally didn’t stop ringing and we were full for something like the next six months. For a little while I was the hot kid in town, everybody wanted to come and try the venison dish that I had cooked on the show. I was thinking, venison is now out of season, I don’t know what else to do. It’s the summertime and we’ve still got venison on the menu! And did you watch it when it was being broadcast? I didn’t, no! They set it up on one of the big screens in the restaurant and invited everybody in to watch it but I wasn’t there. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve never actually watched any of the shows I’ve been on. I’ve seen the odd clip but never watched any of them all the way through.

…if I couldn't really stomach sitting behind a desk doing a maths lesson, I wasn’t going to enjoy doing it as a job.

What’s your first memory of cooking? Being a chef? No, just your first experience of cooking something. Well, it wasn’t at school – there is no doubt in my mind that school curriculums are not written for people like me. There seems to be a similar reaction from all people with a creative slant. Yeah, put me in an art class with a pencil, in a science lesson where we’re actually doing an experiment or on a football pitch and I would be fine. Just don’t put me behind a desk and expect me to learn anything. I was therefore fortunate enough to work out early on that if I couldn’t really stomach sitting behind a desk doing a maths lesson, I wasn’t going to enjoy doing it as a job.

So, where did your love of food first come from? I guess I just grew up with good food. It was a traditional household where my mum cooked and there was hot food on the table every day. Me, my brothers and sister, as well as my nan at that time, would all sit down at 6.30 for a meal. How many brothers and sisters were there? Two brothers and a sister. All a similar size to you? Yeah. So, there was a lot of food on that table. A lot of food. We laugh now because we never realised how much of a genius mum was in being able to make something like one chicken feed us all. There was more veg down the table than you would know what to do with. It was a working-class family, my mum was a fruit picker and I would often go to work with her. There was no childcare so we went to the fields as well. Malcolm, the farmer, would drive up in his blue tractor with a huge apple box on the back of it. The kids would jump in the box and all of the mums would then sit around the outside and he would drive everyone to the farm. I can remember how, at midday, everyone would all come together for lunch. Somebody may have made sausage rolls or baked a cake or whatever, and we’d sit together on a large blanket in the middle of an apple orchard, and share this home-made food. I always remember that and it is probably my first really strong memory relating to food. My nan was also a brilliant cook. Why are nan’s always good cooks!? The worry is that we may be losing those skills now as they’re not being handed down. Are you going to teach your children to cook? Absolutely, and actually my youngest is really into it, she pulls a chair over, climbs onto it and watches everything that’s going on.

So, there was no real drive to be in the kitchen and you definitely didn’t want to go into the army, so what was the first step towards a working kitchen? When I finished school at 16, I just needed a job and my uncle used to be a chef. He knew somebody who worked in one of the local pubs in Devon, down in Dartmouth, so he gave this guy a call and said that his nephew was looking for some work over the summer and he gave me a job. Obviously I was on pot wash at first but I can still clearly remember to this day, seeing all of these chefs running around, swearing at each other, the whole buzz of a busy working kitchen and I thought to myself, I quite like this and that was now over 25 years ago. So, did you go to college after that? Yeah, the family were still in Kent so we looked at a few colleges nearby and I basically had two choices, to go to Westminster in London or down to Broadstairs. They were the two best colleges then and I had access to both of them, which was amazing. In the end, I basically thought that I’d quite like to spend three years by the sea, it felt right for me because at heart, I’m not really a London lad at all. Did you have to travel in to college? Yes, I got the train every day. It was an hour and 20 minutes there and back and I never missed a single day of college, not one. That’s a big commute and commitment for a 16 year old, isn’t it? Yeah, but I enjoyed being a grown-up. It just suited me and I took it all very seriously.

And how long was that course? It was a three year course but after my second year the head lecturer, the amazing late Pete Barrett who had taught all of the best chefs in the country at the time, pulled me to one side and said, look Scott, there’s a job going for Gary Rhodes in London and I think you should go for it. He said, I shouldn’t be saying this but you don’t need to do your third year and you should be looking to go to London, so this is an incredible opportunity. Of course I took his advice and did work experience for Gary over that summer and at the end of that, he offered me a full-time job and I’ve never looked back. How many chefs were there in that kitchen? At City Rhodes? There must have been between 15 and 20 chefs. So, that was a massive step for you at just 18. Yeah, massive, but I remember being absolutely levelled and being brought back to down to earth with a big bang when I started. It literally felt as though I was fighting for my life every day because all of the other chefs were very experienced in their mid-20s, so I had to mature very quickly as an individual.

So, did you continue commuting but this time in the opposite direction? I wasn’t earning enough money to live in London so I was still with mum and dad at home in Chatham, and commuting in. My mum used to come into my bedroom at quarter past five in the morning and say, come on mate, time to get up. I would get myself up, grab some breakfast and walk to the station. Sleepwalk to the train station?! Yeah, literally. It was a twenty minute walk to the station, get on the train to Victoria, a couple of changes on the Tube and then a walk to the restaurant. You would graft all day and then I can remember legging it for the last train home at around quarter to midnight. That would get me home at one in the morning and I would be straight off to bed ready for Mum to wake me up again at quarter past five. To fund my train ticket I used to work as a waiter at Brompton Army Barracks on my day off, just so I could afford to do that to myself, but there was no real choice! At that time, it was drummed into you that if you wanted to do well, then you had to be working in London. That was the mentality then because at that time, there wasn’t the quality of restaurants outside of London that you see today, but that was beginning to change. My girlfriend at the time was working at a restaurant called The Swan in West Malling, so I decided to go for lunch one day. I thought that I was going to a pub in the country, but it was obvious from the food being served that someone in the kitchen definitely knew what they were doing. I asked who it was and was told that they used to work for Marco Pierre White, so I was right about their credentials and it came as a bit of a shock. I got chatting to the team and there happened to be a job going in the kitchen and although I hadn’t considered leaving London, I just thought you know what, let’s give this a go for six months and have a bit of fun in the country, relax a little bit and catch my breath. And get some sleep! Yeah, yeah, so I went for it and that’s where I met Pete Cornwell, who I am still working for today.

You’ve worked with Pete off and on ever since that time, but you did also spend some time doing something on your own, didn’t you? Yes, an opportunity arose to try something new, I guess. Was it that same thing – never say no. Exactly that, never say no. I was at The 26 then and had worked very hard to get that restaurant established but I kind of hit that five year mark. I had just done the Great British Menu as well and following that, I started to reflect on how much further I could actually take things where I was, and there were also some personal things that I needed to address. I needed a bit of a fresh start and to concentrate on something new.

Sometimes the stars align I guess, and there was a team that were opening up a new restaurant in Tonbridge, so I went to have a look. It was a beautiful site and a ground zero project, so it was exactly what I needed at that moment in time. But then, of course, Covid came along and that forced everyone to really reflect on life and their current situation. It hit at a time when my partner and I had just our daughter, Katie, and we had also just bought a house nearby, in Rusthall. Something just kept taking my mind back to Pete and backtracking a little, I had never been the head chef at The Beacon, it had been a part of my life for 10 years but I was never head chef here. There had been five or six before me and I had always been nearby and able to jump in and lend a hand when needed, but my main focus was obviously at The 26, in Southborough. Perhaps things fall into my lap sometimes, but what happened next was definitely perfect timing for me. The head chef here, Tom Gentry, a brilliant chef who is now at St Leonard’s in West Malling, had an opportunity to take on that project, which obviously left a massive gap here and everything seemed to just fit into place and I haven’t looked back.

And to quickly round things off because our 45 minutes is coming up quickly. Earlier you talked about going to The Swan and enjoying some amazing food, it always interests me whether chefs are still able to tolerate food that is, let’s say less considered. Whether it’s food, coffee or wine, once you’ve experienced the best of these, you can’t ‘untaste’ them. So, picture this – you’re on a train journey somewhere and have got no time to stop and eat – would you buy the sandwich from the kiosk that doesn’t look that great or would go hungry? I would go hungry and I also struggle with coffee as well, which everyone here will tell you, is something that I have to have coursing through my veins! And when you’re at home, do you cook for the family? It’s probably 50-50. Well, actually I can’t say that because Lara will kill me. I probably do about 20% but she’s also a great cook and we’re both hard-working people. We have four kids and that in itself is a management job, so what I will usually do is cook up a big batch of something like a chicken curry or spaghetti bolognese. Am I cooking at home every single day? Absolutely not, that would be a lie but I can tub stuff up and Lara makes a great curry as well. And thankfully we have great kids, they’re good eaters, they like their meat and they like their vegetables. I know it’s all based on nostalgia, but nothing makes me happier then when we’re all sitting down as a family around the kitchen table eating great food together as I did with my family when I was growing up.