Football WAGs no match for 1st ladies of catering

After their family, a chef’s next big love is their job — so let’s hear it for the WAGs and HABs who put up with their hospitality industry partners

Have you got what it takes to be a ‘Hospitality WAG’ or ‘HAB’ (‘wives and girlfriends’ or ‘husbands and boyfriends’)?

It takes a special type of person to be the partner of a hospitality industry professional.

Why? Well, it has a lot to do with our jobs and the lifestyles attached to these jobs; we don’t do regular hours or days — we work shifts, we work public holidays.

Over the years I have had a few ex-girlfriends and sadly I know many colleagues who are divorced or separated as their partners could not understand our jobs and the pressures that they entail; a situation which eventually destroyed their relationships.

Lucky for me, the day my wife signed our wedding certificate she knew exactly what she was getting herself into; (she should do — she’s a hardened hotelier herself!)

She knew that for the next 35 years, pretty much every Easter, Ramadan, Christmas and New Year’s Eve would be spent alone; or that if she wanted to see me, then she’s have to come and eat in my hotel.

These times of year are very important occasions for hotels, as well as being special times for chefs to show off their skills.

Our customers choose to mark the occasion by going out to eat, so we have to work to feed them.

If we have made plans to go out somewhere ourselves, my wife often sets reminders on my phone or on my Office Outlook so that I don’t forget.

Our partners think nothing of eating in our restaurants, or going to a fellow chef’s establishment to try their food and give them feedback — when you’re in the hospitality trade, this sort of outing is no longer seen as romantic meal for two but as a work do!

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How many times I have been busted watching what is happening in the live kitchen in a restaurant, with the result that I haven’t heard a word she is saying to me?

Or woken up smiling, leading my wife to believe I’ve been dreaming about my wonderful family, when in fact I’ve been dreaming about concocting some new dish?

When you work in hospitality, time is something that transcends the traditional laws. You can bet your bottom dollar that if I call at 7pm and say I’ll be home in half an hour, some how that 30 minutes ends up taking three hours.

How an earth does that happen? Is it down to some Bermuda triangle of time in hotels?

No — just a delayed flight for 300 guests or a young chef asking an interesting question that needs in-depth discussion.

You go home completely oblivious to how much time has actually passed, because you were so engrossed in what you were doing.

This lack of realisation regarding the passage of time has often led my wife to ask: “So did you come home via Muscat tonight?”

Then there is that week in February, which my wife jokingly calls ‘WAGs to widows week’ for the wives of senior chefs — it’s Gulfood and time for Dubai’s Salon Culinaire.

At the start of this week, she gives me a kiss, wishes me luck and says she’ll see me in five days.

Then from early morning until late each evening, all my time is spent at the Salon Culinaire, helping, judging and generally schmoozing with other chefs. Then there are all the parties and after-parties to attend.

So I, along with other senior chefs involved in the show, pretty much don’t see my family awake that week.

All I can say, to all the hospitality WAGs and HABs who have stuck around, is bless you and thank you for being there.

Thank you for being understanding when it comes to our other ‘love’ — that time-consuming mistress called hospitality — and for loving us and putting up with us, despite all our faults.

Culinary regards,

Marcus Gregs