He is also continuing his work with Visit Britain, and will be in Japan this April promoting British food. “I’ve done many things with Visit Britain around the world; we did it last year and it was a huge success. It’s great but it’s hard work.
From the moment you arrive till the moment you leave, you’re working. It’s no gloss. I’m proud of being British, and I’m particularly proud of British food; what it stands for and what it’s about. So I love doing that, and that takes up a lot of my time as well.”
He adds: “I’ve always said this: I began in the kitchen, I’ll finish in the kitchen in this industry. I don’t believe I’ll ever retire. That’s why I don’t open things every five minutes.”
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Over the decade or so that Rhodes has been coming here, the dining out scene has changed dramatically — a topic already touched on.
In addition to more casual dining options, the trend of international celebrity chefs opening a roster of restaurants in the region has increased dramatically over the last few years.
Rhodes says: “You can never ignore that kind of competition, but I think at the same time it adds another dimension to Dubai. My only worry is that I think a lot of these people who are coming over feel that they are coming to another London.
Ten million people a day visit London, working there and so on. There’s certainly not even one million people in Dubai every day. We have a smaller market; it is becoming a greater market, but it is still small... how are we going to fill every single restaurant eventually?”
But he’s staying put. When I ask what his plans are for the next five to 10 years, he says: “I hope I’m still in Dubai.”
He pauses and says: “It’s probably one of the most difficult questions for me because if you’d asked me that when I was leaving college at 19 years of age, I’d probably have said I would be lucky enough if I was chef de partie by then.
These days at 21 you’ve got many young head chefs. Those days it was different, you had to climb your way up that ladder. And there I was at 26, the head chef of a Michelin-starred restaurant. I would never have imagined that it would take seven years to get there. As you move on, I think what is next?
“I feel very privileged to be where I am now and I’ll never ignore that. There’s been some good luck along the way, and I’d like to think there’s something I do that is right. Put it this way, I won’t be on some glossy island sunbathing all day. I like to think I’ll still be here and still drawing in customers who want to eat Rhodes-style food.”
Rhodes smiles and concludes: “The only thing I really look for and hope for — and it probably won’t ever happen — is when I pass away eventually, because we’re all going to... I’d like to think if my name ever came up in conversation, all I’d want to hear people say is: ‘he can cook’. And I’d look down and think, ‘I did alright’.”
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