We recently connected with John Murray and have shared our conversation below.
Hi John, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
A brief synopsis This is a story about………
They weren’t kidding, writing a synopsis would be the hardest part of writing a book, so here goes.
So it’s a Chef’s journey, a timeline of events that got me to where I am today, happy, in love, and every day doing what I cherish, cooking.
In the late sixties, Public schooling was brutal if you were dyslexic. Basically, no one understood it or even seemed to care; you ended up, as a sort of outcast in no man’s land, left behind to figure it out. You struggle; you survive and if you’re as fortunate as I was, found my passion. It first comes with a connection with nature, farms and harvests, then food and finally you find yourself in a kind of refuge, a safe place that protects you, busy professional kitchens where you quickly realize you’re not exclusive to the problems you have.
With my mental baggage in tow and unsure what to expect, off to catering school, I went. My teachers, especially Mr Wolsley, from day one recognized my challenges and stepped up to the plate, guiding, reassuring, and most importantly and very discretely letting me know I wasn’t alone with comments like “Hey, look at Pablo Picasso’s quote” “I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them,” from then on things started to get a bit easier in my dyslexic world.
I worked with some of the best Chefs in the world, won major cooking competitions, and found myself on a whirlwind cooking tour of the world. I kept my eyes on the prize from an early age in my career and reaped the natural rewards from long hours, hard work, and a determination to survive in any kitchen I found myself in.
Most of the counties I worked in threw up language barriers, like stepping into a 3-star Michelin restaurant in the South of France with 30 arrogant fucks, (‘French Chefs’ sorry guys truth sucks) with only a few French swear words floating around in my kitchen survival repertoire. They gave me my nickname on the first day; “Roast Beef”, that’s original I thought. No one gave me the time of day or thought I would survive. Two years later I was running the catering outlet for that Three Star Michelin Restaurant. The stories of how I got to that position have been blown out of content over the years but everybody knew I was good at boxing, I could cook, had a sexy French girlfriend, and by then fluent in French.
One of the most exciting and funny chapters in my journey was working on super yachts. With the demands of the rich and famous and the entitled brats that came with them, I learned how to be an international diplomat, dealing with some very uncomfortable but funny situations. Working for families such as the Onassis had great rewards like sailing from the beautiful historic town of Porto to the crystal clear deep blue waters of the Greek Islands and 20 ports in between; now that’s a Chef’s dream come true in itself.
The jump into Asia and Big 5 Star Hotels was the biggest adventure for me; it wasn’t the language but the culture shock. This big-headed, award-winning, 3-star Michelin-trained Chef soon got his wings clipped Thai style, it hurt, it left me scared but on the upside, I learned a life lesson that served me true my whole life and got the numbers of some beautiful Thai nurses.
Falling head over heels in love for the first time on this Chef’s journey was a beautiful experience that changed me, took me down a path I wasn’t prepared for. It then ended up being the saddest chapter of my life; the chapter left only to dreams and never to be written.
Jumped continents and landed in Australia, early TV cooking shows when swearing wasn’t trendy, ran businesses, opened restaurants, and then somehow landed up in sunny California selling 2kg Vegan Banana Breads by the ton to Costco, who knew?
So that’s it, a crazy mixed bag of real-life Chef stories, beautiful people, cultures, food, recipes, and breath taking encounters in 12 countries and ocean voyages.
I wanted to share my grateful journey and hope it helps inspire and encourage the younger ones or anyone in fact who’s toying with the idea of taking the leap of faith and diving into the melting pot of life’s flavorsome journey and cooking themselves around the world from sauté to wok to smoking BBQs.
John, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Preface Okay, so why write a book when you find it so hard to read and write? I have over the last 30 years of my career as a fine dining Chef noticed that giving and helping other Chefs is so very much underrated. My travels and experiences working around the world have given me a natural set of skills that I never knew I possessed, and the dyslexic thing, well that was just a hurdle that had to be pushed over.
When I started to share my experiences, travels, adventures, and skills, especially with younger Chefs who were starting out I saw them sit up, get inspired and most of all demand more.
So that’s it, it’s for all of those budding young wanna-be Chefs out there who have dreams and a passion for cooking. If I can just give them that bit of inspiration, motivation, and particularly on those hard long days when they may feel it all seems too tough to carry on, suck it up. That’s my reason and my reward for stepping out of my own comfort zone, digging deep into my own archive of memorable escapades to gather what I believe may help; then the difficult bit, how the hell do I get it on paper?
Looking back at my career, I was very fortunate from an early age to have been around some of the best Chefs and mentors in the industry/world, guiding me, inspiring me, and occasionally the flick around the ear when I ventured too close to the wind.
Unknowingly I was being nurtured, educated, and steered around the land mines that youth can lay in your path. The journey was full of getting in and out of trouble, coming through it all with only a few proud battle scares and the wonderful stories that came with them; those priceless adventures and experiences which I’m about to try my best to convey to whoever is willing to listen.
A sympathetic Piscean I’m all about helping my fellow humans, when I see people struggling I’m the first to jump in, trying to ensure happiness and confidence a characteristic inherited from my beloved father. The helping hand has always been my muse, I get great self-satisfaction knowing the younger ones around me get to share a bit of me, my stories, and my adventures across an ever-shrinking world. I hope these stories will linger in the curtains of their own performances in life’s journey and if and when the time or occasion arises they can look back on this book and hopefully draw on it.
However, this sympathetic Piscean Chef thing hasn’t always led to a bed of perfumed roses and more than once landed me in simmering water like being in the wrong end of town in a Bangkok night club staring down a handgun or gambling for Heineken’s with a dodgy bunch of miss fits at 2 am in downtown Guanzo.
So yes it’s been written to help inspire and hopefully motivate anyone in this industry or anyone thinking about signing up for a life addicted to flavor and letting yourself get hooked on the gastronomic drug. It’s about the journey, it’s a wondrous one full of unexpected highs and lows, you can take this book with a pinch of salt or fuck it, get your rucksack, pack your mortar and pestle, and then lock away forever these two words, Laziness, and complacency, (you have plenty of time for them when you’re 6 foot under) and go and hunt down the worlds best herbs and spices and never look back.
The journey is there for one and all but only if you’re willing to push a bit harder than the rest of the crazies around you. Love it, embrace it, and go with the rush of life that comes with it, or just run away and hide on the back burner and watch the other crazies do it? It’s up to you, this is a book of what’s possible and what’s out there, it’s in everyone’s reach, all you have to do is set your prize and never take your eyes off it.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
It’s a cold wet winter’s day in the South of England, I’m about to leave our home and head to our busy and successful but cash-poor catering company. Outside our gate, two burly, ugly debt collectors blocked our driveway in a big white van with large letters down the side “Court Inforced Debt Collector” Now this is a story about cash flow forecast and the importance of getting it right as best as you can.
Business cash flow forecast and getting it as close to perfect is so difficult. You can get yourself a crystal ball and maybe Aunty Betty is a clairvoyant but at the end of the day, no one knows to a tee your future sales, staff costs, inflation, and if maybe another world pandemic lurks around the next corner or some idiots in wall street get a bit too greedy.
My cash flow disaster with our business in the UK wasn’t totally my fault but with my big boy pants on, yes it was.
Okay, we’ve just landed in Bath, Southwest England, coming from sunny California it was a bit of a culture and weather shock for all of the family, including me, and I was born and raised here. We saw an opening and decided to open a catering and gourmet cake shop serving the local businesses and the general public with birthday cakes and wedding cakes. We’ve done this kind of business before in Sydney Australia with great success so we were pretty confident in our ability to set up, open, and be successful.
However, when doing my cash flow forecast I didn’t enter into the scenario that the property we had negotiated to lease was owned by a fraud, so a long story made ever so shorter our moving-in date was pushed back 6 months while the lawyers feasted on the bank accounts of both parties in dispute. We were left with no cash incoming for 6 months and all our display and baking equipment in our garage was not being used but paying the lease payments each month.
So putting on my entrepreneur hat I went out to make some money, I did consultancy work for a farm shop, made lime pannacotta at home for a big food wholesaler, and did pop-up special Sunday Lunches, dessert trolleys and all, totally against all the health and hygiene laws in the UK, but hey, survival called.
We finally opened our business “Didi Cakes” in Bath which is still open to this day. We worked extremely hard, doing everything ourselves, with no staff, buying only what we needed that day to bake and finish our cakes, quiches, and bread. But as our cash flow dried up and our bills mounted we were in trouble. We hadn’t paid the local tax rates and that was why we had the two gorillas at our door demanding payment. I made a quick payment plan, which I knew I couldn’t keep but it brought us some time. My two new friends left satisfied with the payment plan but not before I asked to get a photo of the three of us. We posed in front of the Court-Enforced Debt Collectors sign on the van. As they parted they asked “Why the photo” I replied “A reminder for when I need Motivation”
Our troubles didn’t go away. One morning with my wife in tears we had come down to our last $40 in the bank account. Okay, it’s important not to panic, I knew we had about $3,000 coming in from our wholesale clients, and we had a busy weekend coming up. I sat down with my wife and drew up two business plans.
1- Cut and run, sell all the equipment, declare bankruptcy, move into a smaller house, get jobs, and start again.
2- Take our very last valuables and use them as security for a loan of $8,000 and push forward.
We looked at each other and both agreed, “Fuck number 1” So we removed our wedding rings, and my wife’s diamond engagement ring and drove down to a back street dodgy loan guy and got the cash, I reinforced with the young man that I would be back with $12,000 in one month to get them all back and made sure he understood the consequences if he didn’t have them.
Right, we could now buy flour, etc to carry on. I made some COD deals with 3 new big clients which helped tremendously with our cash flow the shop retail kept on growing (more cash) and within the month I had our rings back where they belonged, on my beautiful wife’s fingers, never to be removed again. Three years later we sold the business “Didi Cakes” and used the funds to have a 3 week luxury vacation in Hawaii move back to California and start Orange County Private Chefs which has been very successful from the get-go.
So you see it’s all about belief. Believing in yourself, your wife, your partner, and your family. My ability to achieve no matter what hurdles are put in front of me comes from years of travel. Working in many different countries, meeting people from all walks of life, different religions and cultures, keeping an open mind, and making an effort to understand all they have to say and believe in. It gives you a natural confidence and the ability to look at any problems or issues you may have in your own life from different perspectives and overcome them.
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