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Colin Jackson: What's the difference between being a great chef and a good one?

Paul Rankin: A great cook is made from having a great sense of hospitality and trying to make people happy. Then there's natural talent. Perhaps you have a feel for ingredients, the pots, the pans and stoves, that type of thing.

The work element comes into it as well - how much you train and how much work you put into your craft, in the same way a carpenter would perhaps work under a great teacher, etc.

Chef means boss and in France you get an office chef and you get a chef on a building site, etc. So I'm a chef de cuisine, chef of the kitchen, and that means that I'm in charge of a team.

Part of being a great restaurant chef is having an ability to bring all those people together, rather like a captain on a rugby field or a coach. It's also being a great teacher, because I'm only one person in a kitchen of 10 and I need to be able to bring all those people together and to teach them. I need to be able to communicate my thoughts and my process to them.

CJ: How did you become a chef de cuisine? What was your journey to get to this level?

PR: For me I found it quite difficult as a kid to decide exactly what I wanted to do. When I left school I didn't have any clear idea of what I saw Paul Rankin doing in the future. I worked in various places and I tried on a few hats but none of them fitted.

Eventually I thought 'Well I need to get out and discover the world,' so I went travelling. When I was travelling I was introduced to the restaurant industry as I ended up working as a waiter to make money.

I fell in love with the restaurant industry and the more I worked in it the more I became fascinated with the food part of it. So I was lucky enough to have discovered something that I wanted to put my life, my heart and my soul into. I wanted to become a chef.

I wrote a mad, passionate letter to the best restaurant in the UK, Le Gavroche in London, and asked if I could work for them. They gave me a job as a dishwasher (Colin laughs). For me that was a joy because I had a foot in the door of this world class restaurant. Just being around the buzz and the pots and pans and the wonderful food and all this produce that was coming in, that was the start of Paul Rankin the chef.

CJ: How old where you at that stage?

PR: I was quite old really, I was 24, but that gave me an advantage. I'd spent six years looking for this holy grail of work, something to put my life into. So when I found it, at the age of 24, I was ready to immerse myself in it and I learned very, very quickly. I worked about 15-16 hours a day and within six years I had a Michelin star here in Belfast. I was also one of the really promising young chefs coming up and one of the top 20 restaurants in Great Britain.

CJ: Not many people might know this about you, but you actually used to hurdle as well didn't you?

PR: I was a hurdler. I loved sport at school, rugby, football, athletics, and I was a pretty good sprinter, but there was always one guy who could beat me. So you look for something that perhaps you can be number one in and for me that was hurdling.

I once held the South Antrim 100m hurdles record, and people like you, Colin, and David Hemery were an inspiration to me. I followed you closely and I think that's important in life, to have people you see as heroes. If you can find a mentor, it's invaluable.

In cooking I found my mentor in this great chef, Albert Roux. I think this is a very important thing in life, to find someone who can steer you because to find it all by yourself is quite a difficult and slow process. That's not to say you won't ever get there, but to find a great coach, a great mentor, someone to show you the way and to open a few windows and doors, is a wonderful thing in life.

CJ: Can you see the similarities between being a sport star and a chef?

PR: Very much so. They both require passion, commitment, work and natural ability. I think what often separates the good from the great is a layer of innate ability, a gift, so it's partly that. There's many people with great gifts who don't work hard enough, or perhaps take it for granted, and therefore they don't have the passion and the commitment for it.

It's never one simple answer. You had to work tremendously hard. You had to have that commitment to training, you had to have that innate ability. It's similar in my profession as well. You can have the ability, but without the work, passion and the commitment, you won't really get there.

CJ: So you're trying to tell me that chefs are competitive?

PR: Yes, we are competitive, although I think you need to be careful with competitiveness as it can become quite negative. Sometimes I think you can lose the joy in what you do. It becomes a sense of 'I've got to beat him, I've got to beat him,' and you lose your own sense of joy.

I'm 50-years-old now and one of the reasons why I still enjoy cooking is that it still brings me joy. I get something from what I do which is quite soulful, almost spiritual. There's a layer of satisfaction that I get from cooking that is more than the work itself. I think when you're too competitive sometimes you can lose the joy of what you do.

Finding these types of balances in life can be a difficult thing, but I think it's important. If you're going to last the distance, it's important to have the layers of what makes you tick.

CJ: With incredibly long hours in a kitchen how fit do you have to be as a chef?

PR: You need good energy and you need to be fit because it's very tiring. A lot of the work is quite heavy and quite smelly. That's why girls drift out of the kitchen because they get fed up smelling like fish and vegetables and things like that.

It really helps if you've got something like cycling, walking, running or swimming that can let your body release all that tension and keep your muscles fit.

CJ: How do you wind down after a really hectic night?

PR: I used to cycle back and for to work, that really helps to get a bit of exercise and a terrific way of winding down. I would do yoga, which I find great for winding down. I also like to go home and watch the telly, especially if I can find some good comedy, something that can make you laugh and forget about all of the stresses of the night. A good book is great as well.

CJ: If a young person was coming to join your kitchen, what would you look for?

PR: There are many different types of people that end up coming to me and saying 'Yeah I want to cook.' Some of them successful, some not. There's no one formula, but if I get someone coming through the backdoor who knows that they want to get into the cooking field, they feel this inside-out love for it, this attraction to it, that person is an awful lot easier to work with.

I have had people who see cooking as a job, etc. They got into cooking at some stage and they're sort of ticking along trying to get the money together to buy the car to impress the girlfriend and you know they're doing their job etc, but some of these people one day, perhaps through my mentoring or my talking to them, cajoling them, my goodness the penny drops and all of a sudden it becomes wonderfully exciting to them. They find this love of what they're doing and they're away.

Sometimes someone coming in doesn't have the natural passion for it, but they find it through the coaching or mentoring I give them. I'm sort of opening curtains or blinds and all of a sudden they see it, they get it. This is wonderful for a young person, no matter what profession they're in. When you can see something and you can feel this attraction to it, then it becomes less of me trying to teach them as they teach themselves. They've got it and bang off they go.

CJ: In athletics you aim for a gold medal. In cooking what is the equivalent of a gold medal?

PR: It depends as there's many different types of chefs, some who cook for awards and others who cook to make their restaurant a great business. There are those who cook for a lifestyle, they'll have come through pubs and they like to have the connection to the farmers and the chickens and the natural produce. So for each chef it'll be slightly different.

One of the great awards from a chef's point of view are Michelin stars. The ultimate is three Michelin stars. For example, Gordon Ramsey has three Michelin stars. Having one Michelin star is a big deal, two is incredible and having three puts you in a bracket of maybe 30 chefs worldwide. So for me the first recognition that I had become a great chef was getting a Michelin star.

CJ: What has given you most pride?

PR: Well apart from my wonderful children I think it would have to be some of the awards that we've got. We've twice won Best Restaurant in the UK, one time from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Good Food Awards and another one was the Courvoisier Awards for the best of the best. The thing that gave me most pride about it was to see the smiles and the pride on my staff's faces, because a restaurant is a team thing, and for the whole team it's very much that touchy-feely thing that I could have helped them achieve such an award.

CJ: We've actually competed against each other and there was a winner.

PR: There was a winner Colin. I do believe you're refering to Ready Steady Cook and you were on the wining side. I would have to say that it wasn't too much about cooking. It was to do with the love that the British public have for Colin Jackson, the consummate presenter and world record holding hurdler athlete, cool guy, all-round nice guy.

CJ: So it was nothing to do with my chopping of my onions then?

PR: No I don't think it was anything to do with that, but as soon as you walked out on the other side I went 'Oh no I've lost,' (laughs).