When, in 1986, Nigella Lawson dared to venture down to Surbiton for the first time, for a rave review of Chez Max for the Spectator, a then-unknown Theo Randall had already moved from his position as “the world’s worst waiter” to an apprentice in the kitchen, working under the Armenian chef-owner Max Makarian, who had won Prue Leith her star in Notting Hill some years before. “He was tough," Randall tells me. “A brilliant cook, serious but fair. He made sure you got the job done. It was just us in the kitchen and I learned so much.”
Since those early days, when Randall helped to cook Lawson’s lobster terrine and her “gorgeous” guinea fowl in muscadet sauce, Randall’s journey has been a long and winding one. We’re sitting in his sweeping Italian restaurant at the InterContinental on Park Lane, where his name has appeared above the door since 2006. “Twenty years,” he smiles, meditatively. “It’s an achievement.”
