Marcus Wearing, head chef _460
"Our customers are very aware and are not going to accept sub-standard. We cook differently nowadays, we cook at low temperatures, we are pushing the boundaries at the moment, so buying the best ingredients is crucial for us."
His kitchen serves 35 to 40 covers at lunch and 65 to 70 in the evenings.
Though he could leave it up to his chefs to create the day’s menus, Marcus says he prefers to be hands-on in the kitchen.
"I would start to feel disjointed from the job, I love to be in tune with it. I could let them get on with it but you can get further and further away from the food and one day I would walk in the kitchen and I would not recognise my own food, and that would scare me," he explains.
Marcus’s passion for cooking started back home, where his father ran a vegetable business. As a youngster, his evenings and weekends were spent in a warehouse packing potatoes or delivering to local restaurants and schools.
But it was having a brother, seven years older, who was a chef that was the real inspiration.
"It was important to me to be following in big brother’s footsteps. Brian still runs a fabulous catering company doing a really good job. Brian pushed me into food, it gave me the interest in what chefs deliver. It was either that or go and work for dad," says Marcus.
People may consider him lucky to be where he is now, but he is keen to stress that it has not been achieved without sacrifice.
"You’re 17 years old and your father puts you on a train. You’re sick as a dog because you miss home and your family and you hate London. Your stomach is churning with fear at going back, but your father takes you back and puts you back on the train time and time again. But he was always there on the end of the telephone," he recalls.
Working hard is something Marcus accepts as part of the job and the way to get on.
"You do not go out, you do not have a social life, you just cook day after day and then you sleep and come back into the kitchen," said Marcus.
Recently, the rumour mill has been rife with speculation that Marcus, who lives in London with his wife, Jane, and three children, is about to make a return to the North-West to open a restaurant. But it looks like food fans are in for disappointment.
"No, sadly, it is not true," he reveals. "I don’t know the North as well as I did.
"I have just finally found my feet here. Though I have been here for 10 years, I am finally my own boss and it has now become mine. It has sort of recharged and regenerated me into the next era of my career."