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ENTREPRENEURS
Rick Stein. Photo credit: Sam Harris
RICK STEIN:
THE ACCIDENTAL
RESTAURATEUR
By Bill Knott
For the last 30 years, former
chef Bill Knott, the Editor of
Boisdale Life, has written about
food, drink and travel for a
host of publications worldwide,
including the Daily Telegraph,
Bloomberg and the Financial
Times. He never skips lunch.
I
n 1974, the Great Western
Club, a nightclub in the small
昀椀shing village of Padstow on the
north Cornish coast, had its latenight licence revoked by the local
magistrates. Its patrons, many from
Padstow’s rival 昀椀shing families,
had indulged in one 昀椀ght too many:
“trawler brawlers”, you might call
them, prone to drinking too much
Double Diamond and assaulting each
other with anchor chains.
The club’s co-owner was Rick Stein
who, with his friend Johnny, had
taken on the building as a permanent
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BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
home for the mobile disco he had run
at parties in London. “I was declared
‘not a 昀椀t person to run a nightclub’.
We still had bills to pay, so I needed to
昀椀nd a way of keeping our heads above
water.”
They had lost the late-night licence,
but they still had a restaurant licence.
Rick had no real interest in becoming
a chef, but it seemed the only way out.
He had worked for seven months as a
commis chef in a London hotel “which
wasn’t especially grand, but they did
have proper sections in the kitchen, so
it taught me the ropes. And my parents
