Jason Atherton has the world at his feet after leaving Gordon Ramsay
Richard McComb talks to Jason Atherton about Malaysian food and life after Gordon Ramsay.
It’s the Tourette’s Syndrome elephant in the restaurant.
I am talking to Jason Atherton, one of the country’s brightest chefs, about his love of south-east Asian food. We are sitting in the fourth floor restaurant at Selfridges in Birmingham before Atherton dons his apron to demonstrate the use of pandan leaves with marinated chicken and hot and sour spicy cod soup to sittings of salivating lunchtime shoppers.
He is promoting Malaysian food on behalf of MATRADE, the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, a government initiative, and there’s a nice story behind his love of cuisine from south-east Asia.
But before we talk about this, I’ve got to ask him about that. So I do.
Atherton quit working for Gordon Ramsay in the spring, ending a successful nine-year association which included the successful opening of the Michelin-starred Maze restaurant and its neighbouring grill in London.
Atherton’s decision to move on came at a bad time for Brand Ramsay as the commercial shine started to come off what was once deemed an unstoppable global fine dining empire. Outlets closed in Prague and Cape Town; North American operations were hit.
So what was it like, the end of the culinary affair with Gordon?
“We had an honest conversation and I said, ‘It is my time,’” says Atherton, who has worked for industry heroes such as Pierre Koffmann, Nico Ladenis, Marco Pierre White and Ferran Adrià at El Bulli.
“It was tough. But I hope Gordon understands. It is just time for me to move on. I hope they think I’ve built a great brand for them. Maze turned over £12 million a year when I was there. That’s a big old restaurant.
“All I want to do now is look after my family and be able to retire one day knowing I did it off my own back.”
Atherton is busily preparing for the opening of his first solo venture, Pollen Street Social, in Mayfair, which will boast the capital’s first dessert bar. Before our meeting, he has been liaising with the designers – they’re in Shanghai, naturally, just to make things trickier. Pollen St will be 100 per cent Atherton, a Ramsay-free zone.
It will be a while yet, though, before journalists stop referring to the ex-Army Catering Corp chef (he lasted four months – “I was the worst soldier on the planet”) as “Gordon Ramsay protégé Jason Atherton.”
“My PR team are working hard,” observes the wry 39-year-old, whose accent betrays a twangy of his native Skegness.
And then the good-natured chef gets as undiplomatic as he’s going to get.
“When Gordon was in the kitchen, he was the best chef in the country. I’m not ashamed to be part of what he was. He’s a fantastic guy. But he’s just gone in a different direction in his life. He’s no longer a chef, he’s a TV chef. He’ll hate me saying that, but it’s the truth.”
Atherton adds: “If I could ever have a conversation with Gordon again, sit down, I’d say, ‘Hang on, 16 years ago you were at Aubergine with a 10 per cent share working for someone else and you decided that you wanted to do your own thing.’ And that’s what’s happened to me. There’s no difference there.
“Surely he should applaud the drive because Jason Atheron needs to prove what he can do. Listen, I could fall flat on my face with more than one egg on it.”
It was while working for that bloke that Atherton met his wife-to-be in Dubai. She was on the hotel reception, he was working in the kitchen.
Atherton twigged that the way to a chef’s sweetheart’s heart is through her stomach but this presented him with a challenge – because Irha is from the Philippines.
