Jason Atherton

I told my parents I wanted to be a chef aged 15. They took me to a restaurant called The Mill in a little town outside Skegness, near where I grew up. To me then it was wonderful, delicious food. Going there, I felt grown up.

My parents used to run a guest house and my mum would make prawn cocktail with that classic ketchup and salad cream sauce and a bit of lemon juice – I was addicted to that flavour.

Pollen Street Social in London in 2011. I was working for Gordon Ramsay in London, earning a lot of money, I had security, a nice home, I was living the dream. But to open my own restaurant I had to re-mortgage my house. I haven’t told many people this, but it got to a point where I was borrowing money from my parents to pay my kids’ school fees. A couple of times I had anxiety attacks. If the restaurant didn’t work… well, it was a big gamble. I questioned what I was doing but never for a second did I not believe in myself.

It was at the County Hotel in Skegness. I arrived there straight from school and everyone was in proper chef whites, I was terrified. I was 16, a baby, the youngest guy in the kitchen by a million miles. It was dog eat dog, but I was pretty resilient.

When I moved to Dubai in 2001 I was 29 and single and working at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, Verre. I joined the golf club at Dubai Creek and I became obsessed, playing every single day. The longest run I had without missing a day of golf was seven months – no joke. Like most serious chefs, I’m obsessive by nature, because Michelin star level food is all about detail and consistency. When I played it was a complete switch off for me and allowed me to clear my mind. Three years after I took up golf, my handicap was down to six.

Matthew Fort was a feared restaurant critic whose food knowledge was extraordinary – he’d eat a chicken and know what farm it came from. He reviewed Pollen Street Social and he scored us 19.5 out of 20. It was amazing because I really respected him.

It was a programme called Top Chefs on British TV and I was terrible! I cooked a dish while being interviewed and it was an absolute disaster. I was so nervous, I couldn’t put anything on a plate. It was the most horrific experience and scared the living daylights out of me.

They’re really important to me but they do not rule my life. I respect them and I worked hard for them. It’s a benchmark to work towards but that’s it. So many chefs bring it into their private lives and it destroys them.

I was working in London aged about 22 and one of the guys I worked with had a job interview with Marco who was the hot thing of the moment. My mate got me an interview too. I went to meet Marco and he shook my hand with his massive hand. He has a big presence, he’s strikingly handsome, quite posh and a bit cuckoo. He showed me around his restaurant and said, ‘Do you want a job?’ Two days later I was working in Marco’s kitchen. Watching him work, he was majestic, unbelievably fast and precise. He was born to cook.

About five years ago I bought a gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak with a crocodile strap in Dubai. I bought my wife one at the same time. She said to me, ‘Are you sure about this?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, do you know how hard we work? Let’s buy ourselves a nice watch.’ On the plane home I couldn’t stop looking at it because it was so shiny.