The critics had a lot to say about Adam Robinson when he cooked in and owned no less 4 successful, award winning, London restaurants. Most of it was good we are happy to say!

The Brackenbury, described by London entertainment guide Time Out as “a restaurant every neighbourhood would kill for”.

“Probably the best local restaurant in London is The Brackenbury in which Adam Robinson cooks some of the most direct and best-value food in the capital”. The Observer

“Adam Robinson is one of the defining spirits of his age, a leading player who has shaped the gastronomy of the nineties”. Kit Chapman, Great British Chefs

This renowned British Chef and entrepreneur, is now quietly ensconced once more in a kitchen but this time as the owner of the Corner Post Bar & Dining Room in Howick in the Kwazulu Natal Midlands where he and his family “Retired to” some years back. When asked “Why do we love to cook professionally?” Replied with this honest take on what it really means to him.

“There are many reasons to want to be a professional chef, both bad and good. At one time or another we have all had adolescent dreams of being a pop star, a hard core gangster, a millionaire or a fireman (!).  Not good, but very human reasons for being a chef.
If you think that you are going to be fueled in your hard work (and make no mistake, being a good chef is more about hard work than anything else) by the adoration of an admiring public then you are sorely mistaken.  If you are worth your salt, you will get some good comments/press etc but you will also get a lot of the opposite thrown at you.  Some unfairly and some fairly – and it is the latter that really hurts.

What keeps us motivated and happy to be standing on our feet in a ridiculously inhospitable environment for 12 to 16 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week?  After an exhausting day, you must then go home and lie in bed dissecting your day’s cooking asking how you could do better, how the food could be better.  You then wake up, barely refreshed but with some creative ideas bouncing around inside the skull that is begging for caffeine.  A suitably un-balanced way to lead your life. 

Don’t make your life more unbalanced by thinking that you are doing this for your customers - they won’t appreciate your efforts (why should they, they are paying) and rarely will they understand.  You are doing this for the food, for the raw ingredients, for the fascination with the mechanics of building say a terrine (first take your pig………).

If food in its raw state, its cooked state, on the plate, in your mind, in history does not intrigue you then you will not be cooking professionally past the age of 35 - unless you are then carrying a clipboard.  Remember Marco Pierre White’s depressing parting shot in his whitewash book Devil in the Kitchen, where he tells us that, at the pretty tender age of 40, he never wants to cook again anywhere, anytime, including at home.

Article: Adam Robinson