disapproved of, just because they were
in the industry, 15 years ago the industry
wasn’t what it is today. It’s still not perfect; I
think 15 years ago you only just had Jamie
Oliver sliding down the bannister. Now you
can’t flick through the TV without seeing
some cooking programme.
Jason: So what age was that then when
you thought this is what I’m going to do?
Steve: I was about 14, I’ll be honest, I
wasn’t bad at football, I was sort of playing
for QPR and Leeds, but when I got to
the next stage, which I think it was the
under 14s where it suddenly goes from
that school level up until the national level
and you realise there’s like half a million
all competing for the same positions and
I knew I wasn’t as good, you know you
just get the feeling and then my careers
advisor was like well, what are you going to
do? What do you like doing? It was almost
taking me back, and I think a lot of young
boys’ dreams are to be a footballer and
you get so focussed on it that when you’re
then asked to do something else it’s almost
a bit of shock and for me the only thing
I could really fall back on when she said
what do I enjoy, it was just cooking, and
she said right well we definitely need chefs,
and that’s how it started. So my dad had
a lot of contacts in the industry although I
think he wanted to put me off it.
Jason:
Was he trying to scare you off?
Steve: Yeah he tended to work with
chefs like Gary Rhodes and Paul Rankin at
the time who had contacts with the same
company he worked for and so it led to a
week in London with each of those and
it was hard but I came back just buzzing.
It’s different from anything I’d seen before,
I had the cooking side but I didn’t have to
wear a shirt and tie which was a big plus
for me. The camaraderie in the kitchen
was good and although it was long hours
it actually felt worthwhile, and it felt at
home for me again from when I was a
kid, growing up, playing hide and seek in
commercial kitchens, which probably isn’t
safe but that’s what me and my brother
used to do, so for me it just felt normal.
Amber: Okay, so when was it that you
decided to go ahead with the MasterChef
experience?
Steve: So applications to MasterChef
are normally in January/February time so it
would have been January/February 2013. I
was already head chef at the South Lodge
Hotel at that time, I was newly married,
we’d just had one kid, another on the
way, so for me MasterChef wasn’t really
something that I wanted to do. My boss
at South Lodge Hotel saw the application
and was like “Steve I think you should
It felt at home for me again from when I was a kid,
growing up, playing hide and seek in commercial
kitchens
do it”. I think he was worried that I was
getting stuck in a rut, you know when you
start thinking oh, wife, kids, marriage and
you’re just cruising, and that’s how I’d
describe how I was, I was really content,
I was happy with where I was, it wasn’t
like I was working a huge amount of hours
and I wasn’t really pushing myself so I
think that’s what he wanted out of me and
in the end I shut him up by doing it. That
was a nice feeling as well because I think
when you go into something and you put
a lot of pressure on yourself it makes you
react differently, you do get a bit nervous,
you feel like you know everything’s riding
on it but for me the main thing was just
to keep him off my back. So then my
competitive nature kicked in and if I didn’t
get through the first round I probably
wouldn’t have told anyone. The first round
was my biggest fear, just going out in that
first heat; especially for a hotel like South
Lodge to have a chef in their ranks going
out in the first round wasn’t ideal for them
so there were a few meetings. I thought
there wouldn’t be any pressure on me but
9