INTERVIEW: AT HOME WITH JAMES MARTIN

I PRESS the front door buzzer and push it open to see a tall young man with shoulder-length dark-brown hair, wearing baggy trousers and a t-shirt, at the top of the stairs.

"Come on up," is the invitation from James Martin, popular TV chef and "one of Britain's most eligible bachelors".

Of course, I was expecting this bachelor pad to be somewhat nicer than most, but out of his three-bedroom apartment above the shops in Winchester High Street, it's true to say that James Martin has created a palace.

"I've just finished decorating it," he says in his cheerful northern voice, but I don't think he actually got the brushes out and painted those walls himself .

Not that he isn't talented and creative - his cooking is proof enough of that - it's just that this 27-year-old has money.

"I've only had this place a year, and a year-and-a-half ago I had nothing - not a glass, not a pan, nothing. I hadn't a penny to rub together, and it's all happened in the last couple of years," he says.

"I've got a couple of businesses now, and a house, and I'm starting to sort my life out."

As we talk, he relaxes back in his long, red and gold-patterned settee, surrounded in his richly-decorated lounge by beautiful antiques ("I do collect antiques as a hobby now") and framed photographs of family, friends, and of himself on the set of Ready Steady Cook with Fern Britton, and various other TV cookery programmes. The mantelpiece is lined with invitations to prestigious-sounding parties and events (some from as far back as November last year), but I don't think he's showing off his new-found wealth and celebrity status - it's just that he's very proud, and rightly so, of what he's achieved.

Since he left Winchester's Hotel du Vin - where he became head chef at the age of just 21 - and started his regular TV appearances on Ready Steady Cook and Carlton Food Network, his whole life has been completely turned around.

Instead of a tiny rented room in Kingsworthy for a home, a bicycle for transport and earning "a pittance" as a chef working every hour God sends, James has a luxury apartment, the pick of a Lotus or an Aston Martin whenever he needs to pop to Sainsbury's, he jointly owns a yacht and a delicatessen in one of the most sought-after areas of Winchester, and is on the look-out for the right property in which to set up his own bistro.

But he insists his newly-acquired riches - so far removed from the North Yorkshire farm where he grew up - haven't changed him as a person. He's still the same James Martin.

"I haven't changed - people think I have but they're the ones who have changed," says James.

"Lots of people who work on TV have this attitude change - they think 'I can get in here and I can get in there', and you do get invited to nice things, but what people have got to remember is I never had the money to go to nice places. While other people my age were going out with girlfriends and stuff, I was more interested in cooking!

"I just grafted really, up until the age of about 24-25, and now I've suddenly realised I missed out on stuff while I was younger, so now I'm going to replenish what I've missed out on."

As a determined young chef, James never had the time to do anything but work. He knew if he wanted to make it in the restaurant world, he'd have to forego girlfriends and going out, and work like a slave before he could really start enjoying life like he does now - and have the money to do it.

He knew he wanted to be a chef from the age of eight, and was encouraged by the importance placed in his household on family meals.

"When I was about six I started cooking seriously - my father can remember me doing Sunday lunches at about five but I was probably doing it by myself at the age of six.

"I knew at the age of eight I wanted to be a chef - it was either that or a vet. When I went to secondary school I realised very quickly I wasn't going to be a vet because I wasn't clever enough - the word 'thick' comes to mind!" laughs James.

So he worked in professional kitchens from the age of 10. His father ran the catering side of Castle Howard, and it was there that, at the age of 11, he cooked for the Queen Mother.

At 16, he managed to get into catering college in Scarborough and was named student of the year for three years running, before Antony Worrall Thompson noticed his work and gave him a job at his London restaurant, 190 Queensgate, followed by dell'Ugo.

"I ended up working like a nutcase - it was a 6am start and then I'd work until 2am the next morning and start again at 6am, six days a week. I used to live eight miles away in Wandsworth so I'd end up sleeping on a bench.

"Then, on my days off, I used to work for other complete nutters in London! I thought 'this isn't going to beat me' - everybody in London tries to knock you down and push you to the limit, and once you come through the other side you've achieved so much," says James.

He then toured France and Italy for a year, before returning to Hampshire and becoming pastry chef at the Chewton Glen hotel in New Milton.

Two years later, in 1994, he opened the Hotel and Bistro du Vin in Winchester as head chef, and sparked an eight-week waiting list for a table on weekends.

"I learned a lot there. I knew how to cook and I knew how to cook well, but I didn't know how to control staff.

"When I went there I was the stereotypical chef who shouts and screams and creates, but you learn very quickly not to do those things," says James.

But, in 1996, a customer at the hotel slipped him the business card that was to really change his life. She was the owner of a production company and three days later she invited him to an interview in London. Despite believing after a two-hour cookery demonstration that he "had no chance and might as well go home", he was given the job straight away, and then followed a non-stop routine of working at the restaurant and driving in the early hours to London to appear on TV.

When that series came to an end, he thought his TV days were over, until he was asked to do a cookery demonstration against the clock for Ready Steady Cook, and was picked as the programme's new chef.

"When I heard I'd got the job it was like somebody saying 'your whole career is going to change this week'. Cooking was something I'd done all my life and, all of a sudden, I had no control over what I was doing - it's all agents and contracts now," he explains.

Still a Ready Steady Cook regular, James has filmed two of his own series for Carlton Food Network and has guested on a number of programmes, including Surprise Chefs, Junior Masterchef, BBC 2's Food and Drink, Carlton Food Network Daily, and Superchefs.

In November 1998, he created Cadogan and James delicatessen in The Square at Winchester, in partnership with his friend, Alex Edwards, who runs the clothes shop next door.

In the same year, he published his first book, Eating in With James Martin, and is currently working on his second.

In his typically down-to-earth way, he admits that writing books comes as a bit of a struggle, especially as he's dyslexic.

But he's found a rather novel way of getting round the problem: "I've got a video camera which I set up now and a Dictaphone and, while I'm cooking dishes at home for my book, I describe the recipe as I go along and then play it all back later!" he says.

Now he's had a much-needed break from restaurants, James is keen to get back in the kitchen, so he's currently on the search for the right property to open up his own bistro.

But if you're one of James' many fans in Winchester - who seem to recognise him and say "hello" wherever he goes in the city - don't worry, he's not planning on moving away.

"I would quite like to take over a pub and convert it, although the trouble is in Winchester there's not much property around which you can convert. But Winchester is the area I'm looking at.

"If it means having to drop out of TV for a quite a long time I'll do it, because, at the end of the day, my restaurant will be around a hell of a lot longer than the TV work," he says.

But if you're an admiring female fan out there, this is one eligible bachelor who's very happy being just that!

"My future plans are certainly not to marry, settle down and have kids - not for the short-term, anyway. I want to keep having fun.

"I just couldn't face settling down, getting married, and 'doing the norm' - I couldn't think of anything more boring! I just like doing things at the drop of a hat.

"I like being single - it's good."

n On Tuesday, August 22, James Martin will be hosting a live on-line cookery demonstration at www.everyoneswelcome.com, the specially created website for Macmillan Cancer Relief's World's Biggest Coffee Morning campaign with ntl. Log on to the site to find out how you can watch James at work and raise money for the cancer charity.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.