My favorite writer is Alice Munro—all of her books. She’s a tremendous writer and has taught me so much about writing. She’s my favorite among many, many other books and writers I love.

And then Octavia, I open up her books and the protagonist is a Black girl. And both the Blackness and the youth matter here, that it was like, she was writing people who were 15 years old and who already had a sense of destiny and a sense of, the world needs to change, and I’m going to shape that. I’m going to be a part of that. And she was very solution-oriented in her writing, she was very practical in her writing, so everything is very clear. You’re not going to read Octavia and come away confused.

Oh, over the years, there are so many. One would be the man — I wanted to take his job away some day — Paul Zimmerman, sports editor of the L.A. Times. Jim Murray is writing for the Times now. Red Smith. I had the honor of meeting Grantland Rice way back when I was at the University of San Francisco. When we played New York in football back in 1951. Just a lot of good sports writers became friends of mine. And I respect them a great deal.

I didn’t have a lot of mentors when I – I mean I kind of just grew up in the gym, just climbing a lot. So I didn’t really have mentors. I mean I definitely had people that I looked up to and people in the climbing community, but that’s just sort of the typical hero worship style, you know. Like Peter Croft was a really prominent soloist from the generation before me and I was like, “Oh, Peter’s the man!”

The team’s achievement of winning 2 Michelin stars in 2012.

It’s very easy to get caught up in a habit of work hard and play hard. I couldn’t tell you how much I used to drink in a week – I haven’t got enough fingers. I own two pubs and had built up a reputation of being the best party person in the industry. It got to a point where I realised I was getting too old to be that guy. Now I enjoy the challenge of being on a stag weekend for three days, but drinking Diet Coke and coffee.

No, not at all. I grew up on an estate in Gloucester, with no real sense of what I wanted to do, but I was never afraid of hard work or getting stuck in. School didn't always suit me, but when I found myself in a kitchen at 18, washing up, everything clicked. It was the energy of the space, the pace and the teamwork that I fell in love with.

Exactly. The biggest misconception people have about chefs is that they are just one person. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Restaurants are all about the teams, people working together efficiently in a small space and getting the best results again and again.

For me, too many chefs and too many restaurants are too precious about what they serve. They create what they see as a temple of gastronomy and it becomes an experience of how fantastic everything is, rather than 'just come and have a nice time'. That's it... it's that simple.

Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma. I’m a big sports fan and Italia 90 was such a massive part of my life when I’d just turned 17. That tune just builds and builds. I can imagine a massive coffin disappearing down while he’s singing. What better way to go?