Saturday Kitchen chef Matt Tebbutt: ‘I don’t understand people who don’t get food’

The chef and presenter talks to Prudence Wade about his kids’ opposing attitudes towards food, the differences between working in kitchens and on TV and the confidence that comes with age

As he approaches 50, Tebbutt has been reflecting on his career as a top chef (The Outfit/PA)

Matt Tebbutt’s children might have a professional chef on call, but the Saturday Kitchen star says they’re not particularly keen for his input.

“My daughter won’t be told anything – fair enough,” Tebbutt says with a laugh.

“And my son – embarrassingly or not, I don’t know – he wanted to go on a cookery course as part of his Duke of Edinburgh Award, so we sent him away for five days. I was like – I could have told you this!”

One thing his children Jessie and Henry have learned from their father is a passion for food.

“My daughter is 21 and she loves cooking. She’s like me – she’ll wake up in the morning thinking: ‘What am I going to have for lunch?’ and then she’ll think: ‘Where am I going to go for dinner?’ She loves food, she loves cooking. But I can’t tell her anything – what do I know?

“My son is just getting into it because he’s gone to uni – he’s in his second year, so he’s got a shared house now, so he’s having to cook for himself and he keeps sending me photos of his food.”

Tebbutt, 49, suggests they “picked up the vibes” from him.

“I love pottering in the kitchen. Lockdown – I’d start at two o’clock in the afternoon and spend hours – it was great, nothing else to do.”

The chef notes that multitasking is key to being a successful chef (The Outfit/PA)

For the chef, who studied at Leiths School of Food and Wine, and worked at top restaurants before being recruited to replace James Martin on the much-loved BBC show, you either love food or you don’t – and he’s firmly in the first camp.

“I don’t really understand people out there who just don’t understand food, they don’t get it, it’s not a big deal, they would rather be doing something else – which is fine,” he says.

“But it’s such a central part of my life and always has been – I don’t really understand how it cannot be. How you can’t get joy out of a great tomato in the middle of August, or eating great ricotta cheese that’s been made that morning.”

It’s such a central part of my life and always has been – I don’t really understand how it cannot be. How you can’t get joy out of a great tomato in the middle of August, or eating great ricotta cheese that’s been made that morning

Looking back at his time working under the likes of Marco Pierre White, Tebbutt – who has teamed up with kitchenware brand ProCook – suggests the kitchen environment is a “very different pressure” to being on TV.

“If I go into full kitchen mode on telly, I’d be quite quiet and serious, and it wouldn’t make great TV. It’s a very different type of pressure – in a restaurant, it’s all about time and getting food 100 per cent correct. In TV land, it’s again about timings, making things look good – but then you’ve got the pressure of having a producer in your ear telling you stuff, you’re trying to talk to a guest, there’s somebody over there who wants to chip in – that’s been burned.”

This grasp of multitasking is what Tebbutt suggests sets a trained chef and a social media foodie apart.

When you’re a social media cook, he says, “You’re making one dish and it looks perfect – because you’ve got the benefit of a good edit and you can do it 100 times.

“Whereas you get a restaurant cook on Saturday Kitchen and they’re used to turning out big numbers and it’s fast and they’re doing it without thinking – that’s a real skill.”

Tebbutt ran his own gastropub, The Foxhunter in Wales, for over a decade, before stepping away in 2014 – and he doesn’t seem convinced by the prospect of going back into hospitality.

“Never say never, but it’s a very difficult time right now. I also think it is a young man’s game. It can be brutal, in terms of hours, and what it takes out of you physically, mentally and from your home life,” he explains.

“Obviously there’s a drive and there’s a love of hospitality and of feeding people – now you can do that at home for your family and friends.”

Television is also full of young people, Tebbutt says, which “energises everything. That’s really fun – it keeps you young and it keeps you interested in stuff that ordinarily you wouldn’t be introduced to.

You reach a point where you just cook food that you like, and hopefully people like it as well

“Because it’s not just all stodgy old people like me – we get stuck in our ways, it’s boring.”

Tebbutt’s 50th birthday is approaching in December, an event he feels conflicted about.

“I kind of care but don’t care. I feel really old because I work with really young people in [the] media world.”

But there is an upside: “I’m excited in the way that it gives me a reason to book things – let’s go do this on a whim. I went to New Orleans when I left university, me and my friend drove around the state.

“I hadn’t been back until last year. I went back [and thought] this is one of the greatest places in the world, I want to go back there. So I’m going to get back there, because I’m 50. We’ll go with some friends and we’ll drink whiskey and listen to jazz and eat crayfish. I suppose it’s a good reason to do stuff.”

Reflecting on how he’s changed as a chef over the years, Tebbutt says: “You relax more. When I first set up the restaurant, it’s much to do about your own ego – look what I can do, I can cook this dish, you’re going to love it. Very often people don’t. It’s almost like you have the need to keep showing off.

“Then you reach a point where you don’t and you just cook food that you like, and hopefully people like it as well.

“It’s not fussy and overcomplicated. You can see it with certain chefs, there’s a confidence of putting two things on a plate, three things on a place, as opposed to a young guy who wants to show off.

“The older you get, the more relaxed and quietly confident you get.”

Matt Tebbutt’s ProCook Kitchen Favourites can be found instore and online at procook.co.uk.