Tom Kerridge: ‘If There Were an Olympics for Drinking, I Would Have Been Sir Steve Redgrave’
To make it as a chef, you need to be driven and disciplined. To make it as a chef and keep your body in good shape, however, demands some serious self-mastery.
Tom Kerridge, owner of two Michelin-starred gastropubs and winner of numerous culinary awards, appears to have cracked the code. Having lost 12st over several years (he once weighed 30st), his commitment to bettering his health has been a high-profile success story. Now in his sixth decade, he’s far fitter than he was at 40, and is frequently in the gym, hitting PBs in the deadlift and squat.
He spoke to Men’s Health about managing the chaos of his schedule and why he should have been knighted for downing pints.
MH: We always begin these interviews with the same question. So, Tom, what did you have for dinner last night?
TK: At about 6pm, I had two slices of roast pork loin – all on its own, nothing else with it. I then did a very late-night Wattbike ride and after that, I had some grapes and some cheese at about 11.30pm.
Do you often have to fit dinner around your many engagements?
My whole world is so chaotic. It’s brilliant and I love it, but there’s no real structure to it. If I’m Marlow-based, I’ll skip breakfast and go straight to the gym because I find it hard to do anything having had something to eat. I’ll drink black coffee before I go and a flat white afterwards as a treat, then I’ll hold out till lunchtime, which is normally some form of salad or protein-led plate. It might be a packet of pork scratchings and a bottle of water from a garage because I’m driving somewhere.
What would be a typical dinner at home?
There may be one evening a week that I’m back in time to do tea for my son. It’s very simple, [so something like] new potatoes, some chicken pieces and broccoli that’s been roasted in an air fryer. He can’t just grow up all the time learning about Peruvian cuisine or the different cooking methods that you can do with coals. I remember as a child thinking that a jacket potato and baked beans with grated cheese on the top was mega. And it still is.
How hard is it to eat healthily if your world is food?
There are days when we’re testing 12 pies in a day. You need to eat pastry. The next day I might eat very little and train twice as hard to make up for the over-eating the day before.
What does your diet look like compared with when you had an unhealthier lifestyle?
I generally try to avoid sugar in any form. Maybe once a month I’ll have a dessert when we’re out at a restaurant, but it’s more likely that I’ll order cheese. [To lose the weight], I swam a mile every day, stopped drinking and ate very little in the way of carbohydrates. I still try and stay low-carbohydrate. I tried to see if there was a beer diet where I could
just drink beer and not eat anything, but it doesn’t exist.
How did drinking affect you?
When you drink very, very heavily all the time, you also make bad choices. Last night, I had some grapes and some cheese because two slices of pork wasn’t enough. But late at night, if you’ve drunk 16 pints of Stella, that decision of grapes and cheese is very different – that cheese is probably on top of a pizza that’s got loads of pepperoni slices on it.
What role does alcohol play in your life now?
I sell it in the most amazing, incredible places, but I’m Walter White from Breaking Bad – I don’t partake. Nothing at all. November this year will be 11 years. I miss the chaos and the mayhem I was in. I’m pleased I’ve done it, and I’d argue that I did it better than everyone else. If there were an Olympics for drinking, I would have been Sir Steve Redgrave. I’d be celebrated; I’d be Sports Personality of the Year, and I’d have won it a couple of times, I reckon.
Dream dinner party guests?
Alex Ferguson, Liam Gallagher, Jess Phillips, Joe Marler and chef Paul Bocuse.
Death row meal?
Turbot and chips with curry sauce, mushy peas and gravy (plus 24 cans of Stella).
Go-to dinner spot?
Josephine Bouchon, Fulham Road, London.
Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain is out now (£25, Bloomsbury Absolute)
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