Head Chef James is back in the kitchen
I started my career in the food business “by accident” over 25 years ago. My former business partner and I were both looking to start new careers, I was in construction, and she was working in IT as a Technical Author… but we decided we liked the idea of buying and developing a hotel. We felt that we had the right transferrable skills and searched for months all around the U.K. for the right opportunity.
During our search, we quickly realised that many hotels right across the UK either succeeded or failed on the quality of their restaurant and therefore the chef, so with little experience of the catering industry, we decided to start-off small and gain some valuable experience first.
After adjusting our sights and with more months of further searching, we eventually bought a Tearoom in Painswick. It was very run down and we thought “it can’t be that difficult making tea and cakes for people”, how wrong we were…!
The Tearoom did make some very nice food on a good day, but it was very hit and miss and on a bad day we found out why customers rarely returned more than once, the food was inconsistent, unpredictable and depended on who was in the kitchen on any given day…
We had a problem and I had no choice but to grab the bull by the horns and try to fix it, so I literally ripped up the menu and started again.
I have always enjoyed cooking delicious healthy food for friends and family from Indian to Chinese with a bit of Italian thrown in, but this was different, it was serious… so I studied all things catering.
I knew I needed Quality ingredients, without which I couldn’t produce a quality product, and of course great Service, but the most important ingredient I found and developed was Consistency. Without consistency, people would never be happy to become regular customers, which we all know is what makes any business succeed.
We delivered on all those things, and as a result, the business flourished, we even got licenced and developed an evening bistro restaurant trade, before eventually selling-up and moving on to other life challenges…
I went on to work both here and abroad in the Leisure and Entertainment industry… Singing, acting, working hard and generally having fun in 4 and 5 star hotels!
I firmly believe in customer service and making people (audiences) smile, and my next adventure saw me back here in the UK doing a 'proper' job again, building my own house here in Stroud - from setting out and pouring the concrete footings, to putting on the roof, plus completion of the internal works including the final lick of paint…a dream I’d had for many years…my last big challenge (I thought) before I retire… Well, that project was completed in December of 2023.
Then one day, whilst relaxing at a family gathering, someone said… "Ooooh! who fancies a takeaway?". Another voice then piped up and said “I’m bored with the same old greasy, fatty food. What I fancy is some tasty Thai food, but it’s very difficult to find in Stroud." Well… what a party popper… Enough said! So, at the tender young age of 63…
James is back in the kitchen and has now developed this tasty menu for…
Chef63 - A Taste of Thailand.
Using all the skills and experience I've learned over the years, and once again using the finest ingredients available, you can now pre-order Restaurant Quality Thai Food, freshly prepared by hand, vacuum-packed and then quickly frozen to produce a consistently delicious product available straight from your own freezer.
With Chef63 you can enjoy a complete, balanced, healthy meal in under 15 mins! We offer a full home delivery service “with a smile”, so you can stock up at home and enjoy A Taste of Thailand whenever you fancy it, day or night.
