The kitchen is on fire but service is a washout

Chefs: duller than you think. Sporting rumours of delinquency still propagate—’shrooms at award shows, clingfilm mischief — but the naughty boys and girls are largely a lost breed.

- DAVID ELLIS

For the best, probably. Still, there used to be more to kitchen drama than cooking courgettes out of season.

Dullness is not a charge that could be levied against Chris Denney. He too is a chef from a time before, but of a different kind. Denney is the sort with mad, gas-lamp eyes, with a maniacal devotion to his stoves. The kind that is Trainspotting thin but looks as wiry and strong as a winch. He quivers, Denney, as though he were permanently at breaking point. Perhaps he is. At 39, until then unknown, he answered a Gumtree advert and made his name at 108 Garage, partly because of his cooking (the real deal), and partly because headlines said the place was backed by “the mafia’s banker” (very much not the real deal). In an interview I suspect he regrets, Denney told The Standard that if he didn’t win a Michelin star, “I’ll go upstairs and blow my f***ing brains out”.