The chef and broadcaster on growing up on a farm, the best post-booze food, and why running a restaurant was never his ambition

Would I call myself an accidental restaurateur? Oh god, yes! I had no interest in opening restaurants at all.

I wanted to run a nightclub in Padstow, Cornwall. In 1972 or 73, me and my best friend Johnny both inherited a bit of money from relatives. I picked up £14,000 and I used it to buy a building on the quayside in Padstow. But we had no experience in running nightclubs. We had a late licence until 1am, and everybody – mostly fishermen – got a bit too pissed, and we couldn’t keep order. We got shut down by the police, so I opened the restaurant [the Seafood Restaurant, which celebrates 50 years next year] to keep the business going.