The truth about working in top restaurants

'I’d come home from work in tears every day' – Former Chef at Michelin-starred restaurant

“I’ve worked at three prestigious London restaurants and encountered some nightmare characters. The most famous was the worst behaved, although he was, and still is, one of my idols. I was there just over six months and it was my first job out of college. I worked 18-plus hours a day up to ten days in a row. It’s hard, but people almost become your family because you’re there so often. I’d never do it again, but it gave me some amazing discipline and training. In the end, I left because I was a 20-year-old boy who would come home in tears every day.

“People got fired daily: in one instance, a Head Waiter yawned at the pass (the counter where chefs put finished dishes for collection) and was instantly dismissed; that was someone who’d worked there for eight years.”