TV Chef James Martin REVEALS his Insane Car Collection & Success Story
Road To Success with Benedict Fowler
TV Chef James Martin REVEALS his Insane Car Collection & Success Story
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Term
State 5
'State 5' seems to refer to a type of car or model, but it's not a widely recognized term. It might mean a special version of a car that has more features or is more powerful.
Car
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous car brand from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. Many people dream of owning one because they are known for their speed and style.
Car
Vauxhall Nova
The Vauxhall Nova is a small car made by Vauxhall, a British car company. It was popular in the 1980s and 1990s for being cheap and easy to drive.
Car
Toyota HiLux
The Toyota HiLux is a tough pickup truck that many people use for work, especially in construction. It's known for being strong and able to handle rough conditions.
Car
Ferrari 360
The Ferrari 360 is a high-performance sports car that was made by Ferrari. It's famous for being fun to drive and looks really cool, which is why many people love it.
Car
Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta is a small car that is great for driving around town. It's known for being economical and easy to park, which makes it a favorite among many drivers.
Concept
Essen Motorshow
The Essen Motorshow is a big car show in Germany where people can see new cars, classic cars, and car parts. It's a popular event for anyone who loves cars.
Car
Mercedes-Benz Be Mercedesbenz
The Mercedes-Benz E 500 (W124) is an older luxury car that was made a long time ago but is still loved for its strong engine and solid feel. People talk about it because it's a classic car that many fans appreciate for its style and comfort.
Car
Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing
The Mercedes-Benz Gullwing is a classic car from the 1950s that has doors that open up like wings. It's famous for being a fast and stylish sports car.
Car
Vauxhall Corsa
The Vauxhall Corsa is a small car that's easy to drive and park, perfect for getting around town. The 5-door model means it has extra doors, making it easier for people to get in and out.
Car
Ferrari 275
The Ferrari 275 is a famous sports car from the 1960s. It's known for its stylish looks and strong engine, making it a sought-after collector's item today.
Concept
Goodwood
Goodwood is a famous place in the UK where car races and events happen. It's known for celebrating both old and new cars, and many car lovers visit it.
Car
Mercedes-Benz SL
The Mercedes-Benz SL is a fancy sports car that looks great and drives really fast. It's known for being comfortable and stylish, which is why people often talk about it when discussing luxury cars.
Car
Ferrari 288 GTL
The Ferrari 288 GTL is a fast and powerful car made by Ferrari in the 1980s. It's popular among collectors because of its unique design and performance.
LIVE
When you're not very academic, when you're in a school that you've been told you're thick,
you're stupid, you're an idiot, I was always the quiet one at school.
James.
James Martin, everybody.
You built a global personal brand, authored 20 plus books, opened multiple restaurants,
and built a sensational collection of cards.
My grandmother turned around to me and said, what do you want to do when you get older?
I want to be head chef at 25, want my own business to 30, a Ferrari and a State 5.
My dad was three quarters full in 2027.
We're not even 2026 yet.
I was working 18 hours a day and I was doing that seven days a week.
I just stand there and cook and talk on television.
What's important to me than anything is...
James, from humble beginnings on a farm in Yorkshire, you've built a global personal brand,
authored 20 plus books, opened multiple restaurants, and built a sensational collection of cards.
But that's just from my perspective.
So in your own words, who are you and what do you do?
I cook for a living.
I wasn't very good at anything really at school.
I wasn't very academic for sure.
I was dyslexic.
Didn't realize I was dyslexic until I was 23.
So 33, never read a book in my entire life.
Written 38 of them, but never read a book in my entire life.
I had a great childhood for sure.
But I knew at a young age, the only way that you were going to achieve anything in life
was to work hard at it because I knew from a young age and me and my grandparents had nothing.
My parents were tenant pig farmers.
So there was no financial income going to come from either of that side.
Well, that side of the family to not rely on, but a lot of youngsters nowadays look into their parents.
I knew from six, seven, eight years old that that was not going to happen.
So I knew the ethics of work.
My grandparents were hard workers, my parents are hard workers.
I was surrounded by people that work hard.
And I think that ethos sort of had that imprinted in me from the age of six, seven,
and even more so when you're not very academic, when you're in a school that you've been told
you're thick, you're stupid, you're an idiot.
I was always the quiet one at school.
You know, there's a group of kids at school that were quite quiet.
I was that person.
Very different to what now is now you're on television for millions and on tour and stuff
like that on stage and everything else.
But back then I was always the quiet one.
There was Fiverr's in the school class that we're all in that sort of similar group.
Amazing times, but it certainly built me to what I am now without shadow there.
It's amazing to think most of us look at people at school and we pick out like the dominant kind
of crazy characters that are full of energy and would pick those people to be the ones
on the screen under lots of pressure delivering those kind of live moments and everything else
that you've done.
But when you actually bring it back, so much can change in the course of someone's journey.
It was the opposite of school, really.
I mean, David Coates was the guy at school, he's a mate of mine now.
He was the sportsman at school, the one that everybody looked up to.
The girls looked up to him, the guys looked up to him.
Very different to what it's almost gone, you know, flipped full circle in terms of
what you achieved in life.
And I think I was with a group of probably four or five of them that we all had a similar sort
of mental ethos.
We weren't geeks.
I wasn't a computer geek.
And this is before mobile phones, before the internet, before any of that.
So this is before anything, really.
It was just that you just had an imprint.
It's difficult to describe, really.
I just had this imprint in my brain that I wanted to be a chef from a young age.
I started in the kitchen when I was nine years old.
My dad put me on the pot wash when I was nine.
That's the mentality of that Yorkshire farmers had, and some of them still have.
You know, when you can walk, you can work.
I'm not paying your pocket money.
You get out and work.
And you work.
How that's it?
And then I think at that age, you either love it or hate it.
And I say to the younger generation now that want to get into catering, the best way to do it
is going to a restaurant because you've still got a university, you've got a college.
You're not going to learn anything.
I don't mean to be rude to colleges, but you're not.
The best way to learn is in the industry.
You learn on the job.
But also, you'll learn at a young age to then make a decision when you're 16, 17, 18,
to go, this is not what I want to do.
Don't do it 10, 12 years old.
Don't do it when you're 16.
Because when you're 16, 17, it's too late to change your mind, or it can be.
So just, you know, just have that little, a little tester, that's what I had.
I just was quite fortunate.
My family were sort of quite well connected in sort of catering.
I worked at a place called the Mally and Spartan Gulf under when I was 10,
working with Brian Turner and Keith Floyd.
And I was 10 years old in the kitchen.
And I didn't really, there was no, there was no real TV stuff about then.
There was, but these people were famous.
They're famous chefs coming up.
Never wanted to be there at all.
I just wanted to work in a kitchen.
And then from 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, my dad then sent me to France,
and I worked in Mr. Style Restaurants.
And then I just knew when I left school at 16, with zero qualifications,
I had absolutely not failed cookery at school, nothing.
I just had enough qualifications to get you into Catering College.
And back then Catering College, it was different to what it is now.
Because it was run by a military organization.
You were late for my lesson under Ken Alton.
You knew about it.
Yeah, you were only late once.
And you were late twice, you were kicked out.
And you were, it was almost that sort of karate kid moment.
I keep looking at that film thinking that was the defining moment in my life really,
when I learned the respect.
And the industry that you respect for your ingredients, respect for the team, respect that.
I learned that just as soon as I finished school at 16.
I think everybody that I speak to in the back of this van,
the things that they learned the most in their earliest years wasn't the actual recipe.
It was the ethos of how you should do that recipe.
You cook it with passion.
You cook it with...
There's no shortcuts.
Yeah, there's no shortcuts to life.
If you want to learn something, you'll notice if you speak to anybody
that's done very well in their life, there's no,
there's very, very few that have had shortcuts.
There's this few that have had a combination of risk.
And that's part of your job.
But part of that is believing in yourself.
And it's not an arrogance thing.
It's just going, I believe in myself.
It's like the sportsman mentality.
I'm not sportsman, but I know that I'm as good as anybody else.
Are you as competitive as everyone else?
Not as competitive.
No, I was never competitive at school, but it's that mutual respect for everybody.
And they have for you because the industry is not a competitive game.
So my industry is not a competitive game.
People think the chefs are out to do it.
It's absolutely couldn't be further from the truth.
It's an industry that is so close to it at the top at that level,
but they're all mates.
They're all friends.
You've probably seen on the internet that, you know,
I'm doing dinners at Sap Bains's house at restaurant to help him out.
I'm, you know, you're always doing favors for everybody else and their vice versa.
So there's no, there's no financial gain.
It's just that I respect you.
I respect you for asking me to do it.
And I will do it.
I'll do it for you for nothing.
It's, it's not, you know, that's, that's the mentality our industry have.
It's, um, you give and take, but you predominantly give a lot all the time.
Our worlds, when we form everything that you've just gone through there,
some proper key fundamental moments are a lot like recipes.
There's pieces to them that if you miss it out, it just won't come together.
Now I can clearly see like a load of the pieces along that recipe
that have been dropped into the pot to get you to where you are now.
But bringing it back, when you do grow up in Yorkshire on a farm
and then you get put in the pot washing the younger,
if you now look at how much of the world that you see,
you mentioned that you got sent to France rather than when you were younger.
Was that quite a big eye-opening moment for you?
Do you think it's important to kind of get out and see the world?
It's important to get out of your comfort zone.
I think, you know, a lot of people find jobs comfortable.
I've never felt, the minute I've felt comfortable, I've gone,
particularly a young age.
And I want to progress and want to move on.
And there's still the same thing now on 53.
It's still the same thing.
We want to progress forward without me progressing forward.
We just get left behind.
I think, you know, in the industry, you know, what's different now to what it was back then,
it's so much more open than what it was back then.
France was the place where you had to go.
Whereas nowadays, America, you've got Japan, you've got Dosep.
It's a bit difficult now with Brexit.
You can't, there's freedom of movement and stuff.
But it's certainly when you were training, France was the place to go.
So you can imagine being a, I mean, I was 12, 13 years old
when I first stepped up in a two-star restaurant in France.
Can you imagine what they thought of British food back then in the 80s?
You know, when it was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,
we weren't the greatest culinary country in the world.
So the abuse that you got, the grief that you got,
but you stand there, you put up with it and you fight back, but you take it.
And the respect that the team will have for you.
It's a very weird thing because the 80s was a real weird time.
But it grows you when it toughens you up.
And I was tough on the farm anyway.
There was nothing I knew from the age of, you know, 10 years old.
If there was any grief at school, I was going to fight back.
So I would never start anything.
I was going to fight back.
What would success have looked like to you at 12 years old?
If you were to paint the picture and look forward in time.
I have it on.
I have my parents have it on old cine camera footage.
I was going around the dining room table.
We had a kitchen table in the farm and it was a Sunday and everybody was
brought back from the farm.
And I was going around on a skateboard.
I couldn't skateboard.
I was pushing myself around the skateboard all around the past the
agro and everything else.
My grandad turned around to me and said,
what do you want to do when you get older?
And it's old, it's on cine camera footage.
He said, I want to be head chef at 25.
I want my own business at 30 and I'm a Ferrari and I was 35.
My grandad turned around and said, you get a proper job and you play cricket
because he was a professional cricketer when he was younger.
You play cricket.
And it was either that or it was being a chef or been an artist.
And my dad said, all the wealthy artists are all dead, the successful ones.
So you're not doing that.
And then nobody ever forced me into the kitchen.
But even now, you know, they sort of look back and they were there.
My mum used to send me down vouchers when I worked down in London.
She's sent me down.
Michael Spencer's vouchers for food because I couldn't afford to live.
You know, I was living hand to mouth in London because I wasn't anything.
You know, I remember living not too far away from here.
I was working here and I used to cycle five, four, five miles to work here.
I used to work on Wandsworth Common.
I used to cycle five miles to work and getting up at five, finishing at one and next morning.
When you're doing that repetitively and it takes like a toll on you and you just get to the point
like, oh, my God, did you still not let go of that goal?
You still have that goal.
And this then separates the, people got driving different fields.
It's just, I've always, I've always got up at, you know, even when we do Silverstone.
Now we get up at, you know, the alarm goes off at four o'clock in the morning.
I'm in the kitchen with everybody else and you finish when everybody else is finished.
Awesome.
A lot later than everybody else has finished.
You're still doing 21 hour shifts.
It's nuts.
To anybody else on the outside, you think it's completely crazy, but I love it.
It's the best job in the world.
So do you love pressure?
No, I just love the job.
But I don't, I don't, I don't see pressure.
I don't, I don't get, I don't have pressure.
I don't get stressed.
It's really weird.
But it comes down to the fact of when you're younger, you're working with an amazing team.
You cannot do this alone.
You can't do it on your own.
Anybody that thinks you can do it on their own, you're deluded.
You'll be finished in business in two weeks, less than two weeks.
You have to do it with a team and you have to respect that team 100 percent
before you even walk through the door.
You often, 100 percent respect for them.
And the first thing you do is go around and say hi to everybody.
The last thing you do is you have a meeting every night and just see
anything we can do to make better, anything that's gone wrong, anything that we can look at.
You know, well done, Jack, well done, Jim and all this stuff.
You praise, you put praise on the team, but you also get the team to fire back with
what we could do better.
And you do that every single day.
So this day, is that still your favorite thing, being in the kitchen?
It's, I'm in the kitchen twice, three times this week.
And I'm not in the kitchen as much as I used to do.
But I'm in the kitchen and I'm apron on Wednesday, apron on Thursday.
We've got 160 people for lunch on Thursday and I'm fronting the whole thing.
That's pretty nuts.
But it is, but it's, it's, you know, I'm with a, I've got an amazing,
amazing girl in the pastry kitchen, one of my restaurants.
And I said, I'm going to get there in there the day before and don't make anything because
I want to make it with you.
And she's 19 years old.
So I said, I'm going to bring the little tartlemols.
We'll do it together and I'll show you how I would do it.
And this is how, but why, why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you stand there with somebody and,
and, and, you know, I look at that when I was a young kid, like 19 years old and, and, and
chefs that would stand there and teach me, I remember that for the rest of my life.
So I wouldn't, why wouldn't I depart that 40 years of knowledge on to somebody
who's 19 that can then progress forward and, and I want them to move forward.
I don't want them to work for me the rest of the life.
So I want them to move on and see success elsewhere and get somebody else through,
through the doors and through in, but it's all about the team.
You cannot do it without the team.
So, you know, it's 160 people for lunch on Thursday.
How am I going to do that on my own?
I'm not.
So you build up an amazing team and get that team to work as a team.
It's like, it's, it's a weird thing.
It's like an orchestra.
To see a kitchen work properly, the chef just stands back.
It's really odd.
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Is it a harder thing to make that happen in hospitality than it is in TV, the TV crew?
No, the TV crew, it's the same, same mentality.
When I, when I went into television,
I never thought now I'd have my own production company.
And now for the last 20 years, we've had a production company.
We make the Saturday show.
We make, you know, we make hours and hours and hours of shows a week.
We now make adverts and everything else, but the team is still the key.
And some of them I've had with me for 30 years, 32 years.
Some I've had with me recently for four weeks.
But I want that the team to slot in together.
And it's a bit like a, it's a bit like a football team.
I don't really do football, but it's a bit like a football team.
When you take the striker off and you put another striker on,
it doesn't really change that much.
Demographics change a little bit, but not the end product doesn't change.
You're still going in the same direction.
Without building, it's the same ethos as been in the kitchen.
You know, you build up a team around you that you respect.
I have the utmost respect for all my team in my business,
because they're all brilliant at what they do, far better than what I am.
I just stand there and cook and talk on television.
I can't do camera work.
I can't do sound.
I can't do edit.
I can't do directing.
I can't, you know, I, but yeah, I've got to employ all these people.
Take me from the guy that was riding the bike,
ask his mum for an M&S voucher to the first person you employed.
What am I missing in the bit there?
What was that big thing in the job?
Rapid growth, really.
So I worked in London for four, five years, five years in some amazing places,
phenomenal places that you wouldn't have known about until the 80s,
but people like Alistair Little, you know, and some amazing player,
Wartside Inn, and working with some amazing chefs, amazing brigades,
amazing talent, front and back of house, and you learn so much.
And then I ended up leaving.
I actually left hospitality altogether.
Not many people know this.
I jacked it all in.
I joined Manchester Police.
My dad was a policeman a long time before I was born,
and I jacked it all in.
And just before I started training, I applied for three of the jobs,
one of which was chewing Glen.
The other one was Glendly Park down in Devon.
The other one was Glen Eagle.
So there was three hotels out of London that had sort of five Red Star hotels.
I worked in the best restaurants, the best brasseries at the time,
and I'm only 20 years old.
I'm not 20 years old, and I wanted to work.
Just give it one more final shot.
So I didn't go to Manchester.
I applied for three jobs.
Glendly Park wrote me a letter saying no.
Glen Eagle said no.
Chewton Glen said, come down for the interview.
I drove down for the interview.
It's true story this.
I drove down a little Vauxhall Nova with a boot on the back.
I bought it from exchange amount for 30 quid.
It was three cars welded together.
Trigger's broom.
It was a bit.
And I drove it down from Yorkshire.
I drove it down to the main gates of Chewton Glen.
Chewton Glen's so big that the actual gates are in Dorset and the hotels in Hampshire.
And you drive through along this driveway and then back up.
And anyway, to my right, there was the health club.
I didn't know at the time, but this lady walked out of the health club
in very little.
And I turned around and I hit the lamp post on the driveway.
And the lamp post ripped the bottom of my car out, poured oil everywhere all over the drive.
And the owners, back then, the scans came out and said,
you're here for the job.
I believe you'd be taking it because you might be here for a while.
And that was Chewton Glen.
So that has a reflection now where I'm back at Chewton Glen some 30 odd years later.
But after Chewton Glen, it was myself and Robin Hudson.
Robin Hudson's arguably the greatest hotelier that England's ever produced,
with that shadow there.
Amazing job.
Gérard Basé back then was the world's greatest wine sommelier.
And Robin and Gérard and myself, they had an idea and we had an idea to set up a new venture
called the Hotel de Van.
I was 21 years old.
I got the job as sous chef.
And throughout that week, we'd been interviewing at Chewton Glen in the afternoon break,
whatever, all the chefs had gone for the afternoon break.
I was then left to work with the chefs being brought down to London for the head chef's position.
And it was over a period of five days when we had one on Monday, one on Tuesday,
and then we got to Friday.
And I was there to basically show them where the pans were, show them where they were going to serve,
because they had to cook a meal for them both in the chef's office.
With a guy called Pierre Chevia, who was the head chef of Chewton Glen at the time, French guy.
And it was Friday and the chef for the job interview didn't turn up.
So Pierre Chevia came up to me and said, you know, where are all the ingredients?
I just cook us, just cook us some lunch.
And I cooked them lunch and I put it into the office.
And Pierre told me afterwards, a long time afterwards, about two years afterwards,
Pierre then turned around to the owners and said,
the head chef has been underneath your fucking noses all week and you haven't realized.
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It's quite a significant moment, isn't it?
And that was the moment that I thought somebody believed in me,
because back then you're trying to prove.
So did that change your mental confidence?
Because I was about to say that person that was in that kitchen there, how different was he?
Oh, you had to grow up.
You had to grow up.
You had to grow up.
Back then you were working for the people, back then you were listening, you were learning
everything else. That moment when you walk into a kitchen and the keys and the hotel and you've got,
we were fully booked for nearly a year, you couldn't get in, lunch and dinner.
So imagine that as a 21-year-old, I've never been a head chef, never been a sous chef,
and I walk in, I've got three people now looking at me.
Not me looking at other people right in part of a team, now they're all looking at me.
I find it fascinating how you said that you don't really get stressed, doesn't really affect you.
Do you think that comes from toughness?
Do you think toughness and stress are like linked together?
I think you look at your life.
If you want to see tough, then go work as a founder in Wales, particularly in January.
You go up to Wales and you do that and you're earning at the end of it, you're putting your money
on the table, what you've earned for the year and it's next to nothing. That's mentally tough.
It's mentally tough and physically tough because I just think that you have a good life being a
head chef. Yes, it's hard work, but it's not hard work. It's not hard work compared with coal mining
and stuff like that. If you want to see a hard work, there's plenty of harder jobs than being a
chef. So don't think for one minute that it's the hardest job in the world. It's not. If you
do that, you're an idiot. You're warm, you're comfortable, you get something to eat and you're
with a great team. There.
It doesn't always go to plan.
It doesn't always go to plan, but you make it what you make it, don't you?
Everybody's worked with complete assholes in their lives and it's whether you stay or whether
you go. I mean, some places I've gone to and put it up with this, I'm off and you leave, but you
just think there's no better way and it's a good learning curve really for future. If you go through
that because you go through that and you then go, well, when I get a place on my own, what do I want
to do? It's not good. I've worked in so many kitchens where the chefs are shouting and screaming
and they're effing and blinding and then you turn around and there's nobody working with you.
The team's gone.
So you have a big confidence moment. Head chef, bang, running the place, being told he should
have been doing it all along. That's what he won.
I was probably, if hindsight was probably two years too young, but yeah.
Why'd you say that?
Because I felt I had another two years experience to find. I didn't know what was coming. That
was the thing. I didn't know there was television six months down the line. I didn't know that.
I was not even aware of that.
If you had told your dad that that was going to happen, that was just never in the family.
Nobody knew it was going to happen because back then, there was food and drink. There wasn't a
lot on television really. It was probably Rick Stein and Keith Lloyd were doing their thing,
but there wasn't a television stuff. I was 21, coming at 22.
I didn't go looking, but I didn't know understand about agents and stuff like that.
I was living above a Chinese restaurant in the Indian Curry House.
My rent was £60 a month and I was working 18 hours a day and I was doing that seven days a
week. I had no days off. I just worked seven days a week because I loved it.
You've got to remember going back to this 12-year-old kid, I want to be head chef at 25.
I want to be my own restaurant at 30. I got there at 21 in my head.
I'm thinking, I've got to hold on to this and I've got to understand it. There's a big,
steep learning curve because being a head chef is probably 25% about the food.
It's then 25% about the team. It's 25% about food costs. It's 25% about understanding front of
house and energy and how everything all works. It's not just about cooking. You go from just
cooking all your life to then understanding about profit and loss and realizing that somebody drops
a tray of meat like that, it's going to cost you. That's your profit gone for three days.
It's a holistic view of everything. It's a quick learning curve. It's a steep
learning curve into a business. How did being seven days a week absolutely flat out,
completely later focused on the thing that you're doing, transpire into yet another kind of pivot
which was TV? That was off the wall. It was completely off the wall because we were fully
booked for a year. We were doing seven days a week and with the hotel, you're doing breakfast,
lunch, dinner. Then somebody turned out at the bar, it was Mary who was running the front of house.
She turned around and said, this four customers at the bar said they booked a table.
Clearly, they haven't. Those customers were Rick Stein, Keith Floyd, Lloyd Grossman
and a lady called Mary Ramsey. They'd been filming in the area doing bits pieces.
This is before TV, before Google and all that sort of stuff. They'd heard about this restaurant
been the place to go. They came in. We sat them at the bar. I gave them some food. I gave them
risotto. I gave them dessert. I had a bandana on it. I had a bandana because my hair was so long.
I didn't have time to get it cut. 80s.
It wasn't a gimmick. I couldn't afford a bandana. It was a pillar case that I drew because the
only other exam that I was any good at was art. I got an F in it, which is more than what I got
in anything else. I used to draw and I drew on this bandana and twisted it and that's what
ran my head. I had real long hair. I gave them this. Anyway, this woman gave me a business card
and she said, look, I'm doing this new program. Have you got an agent? I went, I know a few
state agents. They come in here quite a lot. I didn't have a house. I don't know any agents.
And then weirdly enough, this is, it happened really quick. About two weeks later, she phone
up and said, look, I want to send a car to come and pick you up. So I remember doing a full night
shift to get ready for lunch because I had to be back for lunch. I said to her, I said,
I've got to be back for 11 o'clock. So I've got to be back for service. So I worked when we finished
service about 11 o'clock a night. I worked all through the night to prep up for the lunch and
dinner the following day. I got in the car about six o'clock in the morning. It went up to London.
I did the interview. I don't know what we're doing now. It's in a TV studio, but they ticked
out this bag of ingredients. There was a lot of people asking me questions. And I got in the car.
First time I'd ever been in a chauffeur-driven car, got back into the restaurant, carried on
working. About two weeks later, the phone rang, said, look, we really need an agent to speak to.
And I went, I've got no idea what you're talking about. So I phoned up my dad and my dad
knew, this is before you were born, this guy called Selvin Frogget. Bill Maydard was the
chef. He played Selvin Frogget in Heartbeat. And Heartbeat used to, that was the place where I
worked when I was 10. The place got Mally and Spartan in Goatland. And he knew a guy called
Richard Whiteley. He was, first of all, he was the main presenter of the countdown back then.
And he then got their agent to film me up and said, look, I know nothing about this,
but I'm getting asked to do this TV program. What do you think? And he said, well, we'll take you on
and see what it's like to start with. And then all of a sudden, it went mental.
It went absolutely mental. Within two weeks of doing ready, steady cut, I was doing Sky,
first Sky's first ever program. I was doing a big breakfast cooking with Zig and Zag.
It went insane. And of course, the more people phoned in up and I couldn't do it because I'm
still doing seven days a week at the hotel. So a decision had to be made quite quickly.
How do you process that, though? It's out your hands because you just...
Did you have any kind of social life with working that much?
No, I still don't. The first time I went out for a meal, a night out with my mates to a pub
was this last Saturday night. I haven't been out for 27 years to a pub with my mates as in a city pub.
I don't. And now after 35 years, I'm now going out because, you know,
realizing there's 35 years of your life sort of not disappeared, but gone.
Yeah, she filled it through with so much stuff that you enjoyed doing.
It's just gone insane. I remember going... It went so fast that I couldn't afford a flat.
I couldn't afford a car. I then went straight out and this is... We're going to talk about cars.
I remember getting my first or maybe my fifth paycheck from the agent.
But then I left this agency and went with an agency called Limelight.
And still to this day, we have an agreement on a handshake.
And it's this lady called Fiona, a huge respect for her, comes down to respect again.
She shook my hand and said, I'll take you on for a trial.
We've worked together for 32 years since then. Now we're in business together.
And it's all done on a handshake. And she then gave me a check once and it
was in a garden. It was a garden party in London that I was told to go up and do.
And I catered for and came back and she gave me a check.
And that check I banked and it was more money than I've ever seen in my life.
And I woke up one day. Back then I could have a day off a week.
So I woke up and thought, I'm going to buy a Ferrari.
I was 24 years, 25 years old. That's how fast it changed.
And I then drove to this dealership. My mate, I'll tell you the story even better,
because he had a pickup truck. He was a builder. He was 20, he was older than me.
He was 30. I was 24, 25. And we drove up to Maranello Eggon.
And we got told to pack around the back. And it was a beating up high looks,
Toyota high looks pickup truck. Anyway, I walked in there and nobody would serve me.
And they're all looking at this 24. I'm in a t-shirt and jeans and nobody would serve me.
There's a guy called John Morgan. And I always remember his name because I'm
still mates with him now. He lives in the Mumbles in Wales. So thank you, John.
And he came up to me and said, you all right? I went, yeah, yeah, I'm looking at somebody's
horrors, somebody's spoken to me in this showroom. He went, you like that?
And I went, yeah, he said it was a 360, on top 360 anyway.
And he said, do you want to drive in it? I went, yeah, yeah. So you've got a driving license.
There you go. No problem. And I remember driving it out the showroom, driving it back, thinking,
I can afford this. I can actually afford this. And I come back and think of the smile that you
audience face. I'm 24, 25 years old, having had a Vauxhall Nova and a 1.9 diesel fiesta and
all this sort of stuff. And then as I drove in, my mates turned around and he went, so what do
you reckon? I buzzed in a smile on face. Yeah, because your mates only going to make you do one
thing. And my mates have just gone, my mates have gone, the car is amazing. You look like a
twat driver. All right, that's sold. I won't buy it then. And I didn't buy it.
Really? I had that much for the fact. This is what got me into the big star car collecting,
yeah. Because he said, so then, then, you know, you then go away and think about it.
And then he turned around and he said, it's two things you need to get now in your world,
you need to get, well, first priority should be getting a house, which my mum bollocked me and
slammed the phone down on me. She knew that I was getting a car. But I went out and I got a classic
car magazine before the internet. We opened up the first page. It was Essen Motorshow in Germany.
It was April 8th to the 12th. I remember this to this day, 35 years ago. And I opened up the
magazine and there was a car show. So we drove the pickup truck to Essen in Germany. I walked into
Essen in Germany. There's a big, big, big, big thing. Huge. Huge. I walked on. We walked into
this one hall and just so happened to be Mercedes-Benz Hall. So I watched in there, Ralph Lorenz
on the main stage with, he's looking at two Gullwing Mercedes and he's just bought one of them,
I think. And I walked up to this car and I, and that's my stunning, stunning car I'd ever seen,
1955 Gullwing. And this German car dealer who's worked for Mercedes-Benz came up to me and,
like John, I was 25, 24, 25. And he said, do you know much about the car? I said, no, nothing.
He opened the bonnet, he showed me the car and he said, this, this, this. Within 10 minutes I bought
it. Didn't know what I was buying. Had no flat and no house, no flat. I was still living above
the Chinese taker in Indian courier house and a rented flat. And you just bought a Gullwing?
Mercedes. That was my first ever serious car. And I had a Vauxhall Nova at the back of it.
And then word got around that there's this 25-year-old kid on Ready Steady Cook,
there's a bit of a car nut. He bought one car. And then I remember, I was more chuffed that
Vauxhall had just launched the Corsa, so they gave me a Corsa.
I can't believe someone's giving me a car. I can't believe it. I can't believe people are
giving you a car. So I got given a Vauxhall Corsa. And then I'd left the hotel by then,
then I decided to take the punt and see how it goes and the rest is history.
And then did your diary fill in the same way that it filled with the hotel?
Went insane.
If I asked you at that age why, what would your answer been?
I have no idea. I have no idea. If I asked my agent, I was the right age, the right look,
the right, I don't know, the people after a young chef. I don't know. I have no idea,
to be honest with you. I was in a bubble that you're 24, 25 years old and you're going,
but looking back, you look back at all the work that you've done previous to that.
I think what happens is more important now than it ever was back then. Back then was just one
after another. You're doing ready, steak, you're doing, I mean, there was just so much stuff going
on. Ready, steak, you used to get 15 million people on Friday night. So I used to go out and
it would be guaranteed that I'd be front page or certainly the chefs from Ready,
steak, would be front page of the news of the world or the sun on Sunday morning because
they'd be falling out of some club somewhere in London. It was insane. It was...
The sentence of you work for 10 years and become an overnight success?
Yeah, but people don't see...
The 10 years prior.
Well, 20 years before though, they didn't see me in the kitchen. I was in the kitchen when I was
eight. They didn't see, they hadn't seen any of that. And still don't.
What was your family thinking viewing all of that?
Because it's been a bloody idiot.
Because it's seen...
My mum didn't really...
It seems that they were great levelers.
Yeah, my mum was always a great leveler. She would always shoot me down and inflame and my dad
would be the same. And they would always... You never got too big for your boots because that's
not the way I was brought up. But they would always put you back into perspective. But I also,
I'm very much a family orientated person. The main thing you do is look after your family first
and then look after yourself. That's the thing. And that's the way I was always taught as a kid.
You know, you look after your mum. That's it. And what you want is second. They've looked after
you. They supported you all their life. Now it's payback. You look after them. And see more so now.
Did it again this morning. I phoned her up before we came here.
It's just vitally, vitally important for you to fully understand how precious life is,
but a fully understand. And it comes down to respecting. It comes down to all this respect
to anybody who does a job and puts themselves out there. I have huge respect for it. And this is
the thing now where I think on the Saturday show that you can then pick up the phone and speak to
the greatest chefs in the world and they'll come on your show. They don't come on your show because
you're paying them thousands of pounds. We don't pay them anything. They come on the show because
they want to come on the show. They don't have to come on the show. But the respect that you have
for them and you show respect for them, they show respect for you. I mean, it's yeah, but that comes
with 30 years of doing it. And before that 20 years in the industry, you know, believe it or not,
James Martin is not the only one in this van that is into food. So away from doing the podcast,
I actually own an award winning street food business called Gertwings with my business
partner, James. Now we've got a variety of trucks that are based in the Southwest that cover locations
we go to every week, private events, we sell sauce direct to the consumer and even have a couple
of restaurants too. Now my other business Tweet marketing was able to collaborate with Gertwings,
building them a brand new website and brand new online stores were able to sell those award
winning sources all over the UK. Tweet even currently working with Gertwings on an AI powered
app to enhance the experience even further. So if you're watching this and you have your own
business or you work for one that needs some help with your digital marketing, whether it be SEO,
PPC, a new website help with ecom or understanding what you can do to implement AI into your business,
then check out Tweet marketing using the link below. But what I've also done is pop a link
down there to Gert sources, which is that online store that sells all of these amazing sources
we make all over the UK. And I've included a discount code appearing now on screen called
Ben10 so that you can get yourself a discount too. Creative, right?
With any dish that you make, with any dish that anyone ever makes, occasionally you can just
think and have a light bulb moment of, but if I just add that one thing, bang, this is going to
completely change the diet and the result of what this is. Tag crab risotto has bought me half my
calculation. Which if you actually look at your journey, one extra ingredient was added to it that
changed the actual outcome from where you were completely on a different road. It's the same
mentality. It's the same work ethic. If you ask any of my mates to say, I was with Richard
Berteney the other day and he said, I've not known anybody that works like you are.
My diary is three quarters full in 2027. We're not even 2026 yet. But I'm excited about it
because I'm excited about new ventures. I'm excited about different things. I get excited
about the, not the chase. It's the job and the job is different now than it was before.
But the job is brilliant because you can create happiness to so many people. You don't really
have to do anything. That's on Thursday, for instance. We've got 30,000 people waiting on
the waiting list for the next dinner that I'm doing in Manchester. But there are 150 people
who have got tickets to go see it. You're just doing what you do. You're doing what you do with
the team. But the enjoyment of working with that team, but I said to the team before we even start
service, we have a meeting about six slots, said the enjoyment that you as a team and we all bring
to that room, you'll get, if you could take 2% of that, I think the rest of your life,
your life will change because it's the real, it's a really unusual thing.
And now, of course, now you've got theatre tours and now it's surreal. You're walking out. We've
just done a 28-day theatre tour. You're walking out. I used to cycle past the Apollo and now,
Saturday night, you're filling it. Does that do anything to your brain or do you just cope with
that? Absolutely no problem at all. Weirdly enough, but the person who's been with me 30,
a lady called Sam Head, who's been with me 32 years, who does all the cookbooks, all the food,
all the, not the, not necessarily, she didn't do the restaurants, but she does the cookbooks,
there's TV shows. She's with me on stage. She said, I've not known anybody like you,
whereas in, as in she does all the good food shows and all the chefs,
you could just be talking to me now and then next minute, walk out and lights are on, it's
different. It's a totally different thing. And my mates go, what the hell have I just seen?
It's a weird thing from a quiet lad at school to be doing that. But that comes through,
it comes through masses of experience, working seven days a week in the industry and television,
understanding how cameras work, understanding how laughter works, comedy, writing. It's about
taking all that knowledge in. It's so funny though, because it's throwing it at an audience.
That's enjoying learning. If you didn't enjoy learning, you wouldn't be able to get excited
about doing that stuff. Did you ever stop learning? Yeah. The entire first part of your life was
talking about the fact that learning was actually one of the things that people put you down for.
That's the thing. Yeah, you're always put down for it. But what you didn't realise is that there's
that quiet lad in the corner that's taking everything in. I'm dyslexic, but you'll only
have to tell me once. And yet you've written 30 plus. It's a bit odd, isn't it?
When did you decide to take on that challenge of writing your first? I'm going to write a book.
I'm dyslexic. I was always sort of, can't do this, but I am writing a book.
The weird thing is about this industry is that there's a group in this industry,
and we're talking about the television and the media industry, there's a group that
want it and there's a group that don't want it. And I'm the group that don't want it.
I just happen to be in it and I'm okay at it, but I don't chase it. I'm not one of these
Instagram people that go running around at all. I don't need to go chasing it.
And to me, if it disappears tomorrow, that's fine. I'll go back to my restaurants.
But it's there and I've been doing it 30 odd years. It's amazing. It's an amazing journey.
But don't think for one minute it's going to last forever. It's not going to last forever.
And I don't go chasing it. I think that's the... There's a mystique with it because I don't chase
it. I don't talk about... First thing is I don't talk about relationships. That is a fundamental
thing. My family and my relationship is more important to me than anything.
The minute people do that, I walk out. And even now, we're doing a book tour. I can
mention newspapers that I won't speak to because they want me to talk about that
as opposed to talking about the book. I said, why don't I want to talk about that to promote a book?
Get a life. I'm not doing it. Don't need to do it.
But what's important to me than anything is my family, my relationship. And that comes first.
And then everything else around it is second.
But why did you learn not to talk about that?
I think you get burned. I think you learn... I think people can write stuff about you and even
more so now. Back then, they would write stuff about you. I mean, you look at the newspapers,
you go, what are you writing about? What is this? It's just not even remotely true.
A source says, whatever. I just don't... Somebody quite famous who I interviewed,
very, very famous, taught me a valuable lesson. This was probably 25 years ago.
And he said, build big gates in your house. Big gates. Not see-through gates. Big gates.
And I said, what does that mean? He said, just build them. Because I was building my house and
just do it. And even now, yesterday, tonight, when I go back home, those gates are on, when they
short, it's that bang. And I look back and you can't see in. That's my space. That's my...
That's my bit. Because your brain needs that.
Well, everybody needs that. And I think it's such a shame when you... But this is the thing
comes out of that. It's the other part of people. So you've got two different types of people that
are in media. The other one, let all that in. And they let all that in to promote themselves and,
well, what are you doing? When that turns, which it will turn, and it will, trust me,
because the Brits are brilliant at kicking you in the balls and bringing you back down to earth
again. Don't blame me. You've got nowhere to go. But when you get in behind those gates,
into your private bit, into your private life, there are some cars behind those gates.
There's some big dogs as well. But yeah, there are some big dogs. But there are also some big dog
cars behind those gates, including a Ferrari 275, if I'm right. And it is not just any 275. The
everything you'd want out of a car. But do you still... You mentioned relationships a minute
ago. I'm going to ask you about one. It's the relationship with your cars. Do you have any
issue if they all go away? No, because it's a moment in time. So I've just sold out from my
collection recently and re-bought more. But there's certain ones that mean something to you. And
that one, that 275 Conk car, the story is as important as the car itself. So I was at Goodwood.
I raced at Goodwood over the years and I've loved Goodwood and I walked onto the stand and it had
sold back up Paul Osbourne. He'd sold it. Then it's true story. The phone rang when I was on
Saturday Kitchen for the Bee. We were talking 20-odd years ago now. This is before... When you
have not these proper brick phones, knock your things and it was buzzing underneath the counter.
And I couldn't shut it up. So I got told off when we were linking... I linked to the break of
when we're linking into a VT, looked at the phone. It was the old text messages that came through
and it was Paul Osbourne. He said, I'm in Germany, the car that you've always wanted,
that you saw at Goodwoods for sale. You've got an hour to decide whether you want it.
True story of this. And I just bought my house. Problems. I just bought my house. I had enough
money to do the house but I didn't have enough money to do both. And I bought the car.
This is our Chef Man 30 work. So I bought a dream home that I was a wreck that was going to do
up. It took me two years to do up. Same week I bought the house, I bought the car. Then I lived
in a motor home for two years. It's a little bit like the guy that bought the SL at the beginning.
So it's almost there 15 years later. So I had the Ferrari in my mate's lock up
and I was living in a motor home on my driveway. True story. So that means a lot in terms of what
you are but the story of the car and everything else and the fact that the value of it you just
buy it because you like it and it's a movable bit of out. People spend more money on people buy
properties and big property empire. I'm not that type of person. I just I couldn't understand why
people weren't buying these cars because I just thought they were amazing. Nowadays it's slightly
different but you know and then I bought I remember buying a 288 GTL for which you're saying in that
in John McCarrie's page 350 for it. Yeah we had to be slightly less distracted this morning because
we've got a showroom of cars in John McCarrie behind us that are very dangerous to keep us
out of the way. He's already picked up two cars already for me but that you know you don't you
don't really understand it and I just I like them for what they are to me they're pieces of art and
for me as a young kid I remember peering through the window all these showrooms when I worked in
London and even before then I remember been on holiday. I kind of been seven eight years old.
It would probably be eight maybe nine years old and I'm maybe a little bit teens. I was probably
eleven eleven and because of the nature of the car I remember going on a boat in holiday because
we didn't go anywhere fancy on holiday was a family so we went on a boat in holiday in the
River Thames and we parked about side of Windsor and my granny there used to be a toy shop on
Windsor Bridge. My granny took me to the toy shop and she bought me a little toy 288 GTL
as a young kid. That toy is by the side of my bed every night but the real one is in the garage.
And you still think you're not competitive? I'm not competitive I just because I think
there's a link to competitive. No it's not competitive because who am I competing against?
Who am I competing against? Yourself. Oh competing against yourself for sure but you don't want to
be I think a lot of people who use chat too that I like myself is that they they they're scared
about going back to where they were. That's what scares me I don't want to be I want to be
moving forward. I want to be moving forward all the time and that's not necessarily a financial
thing it's not it's not by any means it's just I just want to be want to be moving forward
and learning from what you did today to improve yourself tomorrow.
Do you find that writing is a great leveler? Like you're saying I'm a bloody night writer.
No I at the way I write books is very different so I dictate a lot of it and without Sam being
involved in it for 32 years. See a lot of people don't know for the 20 years I've been
20 years and we're on Saturday mornings every single recipe that I've ever done on every recipe
that I've done for 20 years I've not rehearsed it. The first time I've done it is the first time you
see it nobody not many people know this because they think you rehearse all the chefs rehearse this
stuff I don't rehearse anything nothing there is one set of ingredients every Saturday I have got
one set of ingredients and I've never done that dish before until the press action
and and Sam is there with a piece of paper she's got a little red file it's called this is your
life book two because we've been doing it for so long and in there the scribbles on it and she's
behind the camera and she's right she puts all the ingredients in front of me and I'll go no add
that no I don't want that change that do that do that okay right I've set and then she's there with
a pen and piece of paper and she's writing the recipe down while I'm cooking it and that's what
forms these amazing books just like the latest one the straw exactly what it is it's just it's
in here it's trying to get out it's thinking about new stuff and that enables me to cook and
interview people at the same time because if I had a recipe to follow and I had to do it like this
thanks I was there telling you would probably miss an ingredient or mess it up
whereas I've got the freedom to be able to cook and talk to somebody and most importantly listen
it's not many people can do stuff and listen listening is pick thing and listening comes
back to when I was a young kid without you learning you can't you've got to listen
what drives like where you go next is it happiness or is it just
where I go next I have a drive I have a goal each year and that goal is is usually four wheels
it's usually four wheels and it's something that I'd sort of drive for
yeah so when you get to the point of having a two seven five gtb and multiple other things
that are in your collection what do you get concerned when you start to hit the ceiling
or is there always another goal there's always somebody with bigger and better stuff but
it's all about it's all about loving what you do and it doesn't matter really what anybody else thinks
what matters is what your family believe in you and the people that surround yourself with
doesn't matter what anybody else thinks of you you know I mean the weird thing is
you could drive that Ferrari it could take you out this Ferrari today and I guarantee you
probably 80% of the people spit it shout it and throw things at it
and all you're doing is driving on the road is that quite sad from your perspective that that's
the UK is that do you think everywhere you go in the world I think it's the UK in general
a very negative nation I think the people don't want don't like success I don't think you know
and that stems from the top you know I mean don't get me into politics but you know you get penalised
for being successful in this country it's just I don't get it because you know the successful
people and we're talking way more than I am but all those mega successful people are all gone you
know they're not coming back to the UK you know talking about the you know thousands tens of thousands
millionaires gone they ain't coming back what I worry about is all the billionaires gone because
they're the people that are seriously putting money back in and employing people employing people
and building building businesses and everything else like that you know it comes down to the fact
you can't do on your own so what keeps you to stay here um great team you know I've got great
family here but I've got I've just got a bloody great team with with me and it's just you know
and you know my right hand man Adam he's just had a new baby boy and you know when he first started
me just he just had his first kid now he's got his second you know it's just um yeah I've got a
bloody good team you know and what am I going to do something something in my bayer and
you know I just you know I get bored um and and I just love I love my job it comes down to loving
my job I love my job I love my work and all I to try and do is every day is try to be
better than I was yesterday and that was my grandmother's ethos is my granny Smith got
bless her um sounds daft talking about your granny but but if I could be 10 percent of what my granny
does I'd be 110 percent of that person and she didn't have a job she had but only she was magical
to be around and and you just had to be around you know somebody walks into her room there's
probably two or three people I've met in my life my granny was one of them the queen was the other
one I sat and I had lunch with the queen there was six of us at booking in palace and she walked
into a room and could stop everything and my granny sounds daft but my grandma's the same
because she'd walk into a room and you would I don't know where you were brought up but you
were told respect and you shut up and listen and I valued that so much and the one thing I value
more than anything else I wished I've had more time to ask more questions but I wasn't old enough at
the time fully understand it now you realise you should have asked more questions well James I wish
I had more time to ask more questions today because we were limited to about an hour with your insane
schedule but I'm sure that we'll finish your story one day and sit you back down in this van and go
through it we'll talk cars a bit more I suppose I think we both like to do that but thank you so
much for giving me the hour that you had everybody if you enjoyed this episode you want to see James
back on again to get right down into his cars and a little bit more I'm just going to show you this
as well yes we're doing more and I wasn't going to normally show you this sorry I'm just monitoring
your time no no we're just going to show you this so this this is this is um this is the bag of many
things this is the bag of things look I'll show you this this is quite this look what you brought
with you do you bring that especially for today that's it so cool isn't that it's amazing that
is what started it that that's probably one of the most valuable things you own
yep amazing there you go jave thank you so much for coming on road to success giving me your time
and I'm sure we'll meet again in the future if you enjoyed today's episode please consider
subscribing to Roots of Success
About this episode
James Martin shares his remarkable journey from a quiet, dyslexic child in Yorkshire to a celebrated chef and television personality. He discusses the hard work and determination that fueled his success, including his impressive car collection. Martin reflects on the importance of teamwork in both the kitchen and on television, emphasizing respect and collaboration. He also recounts pivotal moments in his career, from early kitchen experiences to the unexpected transition into TV. With anecdotes about his family and the ethos of hard work, this episode offers an inspiring look at achieving dreams against the odds.
Original notes
Check out Tweak: https://www.tweakuk.com/From washing pots at age nine to becoming one of Britain’s most beloved chefs and TV personalities, James Martin shares his extraordinary story — filled with lessons about hard work, respect, resilience, and passion. In this in-depth conversation, he reflects on his humble beginnings, rise to television fame, obsession with cars, and what keeps him driven after decades at the top.Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more exciting content about your favourite shows and celebrities. Hit the bell icon to stay updated on all our latest episodes👍 Like, Comment, and Share this episode. Join our discussion in the comments sectionCheck out Tweak: https://www.tweakuk.com/🔗 Follow Us:Instagram: @Roadtosuccessofficialpodcast@benedictfowler
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