Rory Duncan. Rory Duncan.

What attracted you to the role?

The quality of ingredients at La Petite Maison was one of the major things — working with the ingredients is a big factor for me.

What makes you the right person for this job?

You never know who the right person for the job is, but my approach is that I try and do what is required. I do what is needed in terms of what my employers are looking for and I try to satisfy the guests that come in through the door. This applies to my colleagues as well.

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What have been your career highlights?

There have been quite a few. I’ve been cooking for almost 22 years now. Some of them include winning the three rosettes in the UK which was a big thing and being awarded Best Southwest Restaurant of the Year by Harden’s Restaurant Guide in 2006. With La Petite Maison, the restaurant has claimed many accolades including being listed four times on the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and being awarded the title of Restaurant of the Year at several regional award ceremonies.

What is your daily routine?

I wake up at 6:00am and get the kids up for school, get myself to the restaurant by 7:30am in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi. When I arrive at the restaurant, I look at the new ingredients that have been delivered and have a daily briefing with staff. That’s the routine, then I also have a dialogue with suppliers, and catch up with the other chefs at the restaurant.

How do you intend to make F&B operations more profitable?

That would be a great story, everybody would like to do this. We don’t know — we haven’t got the secret formula. There’s no secret formula to make a restaurant more profitable. Basically, you try and do your very best to deliver a good level of service and quality of food to keep visitors coming back. We try to get people to be as relaxed as possible and have a good experience.

What are you most looking forward to in your position?

I look forward to many things. One is having a consistent restaurant in terms of customers and employees. Also, a sustained level of cuisine, which we try to provide and improve on. I’ve been doing it for quite some time now and I look forward to continuously having a good standard of restaurant. We always try to deliver what we aim for.