Paul Heathcote was experimenting in the kitchen from an early age, augmenting the dinners his mum would leave for the family when she worked night shifts. He says this is when he fell in love with cooking and he would run home from school on those days, thrilled by the time in the kitchen that awaited him. A teenage boy growing up in 1970s Lancashire, his presence in domestic science classes at school raised a few eyebrows, but he says his athleticism (he was also in the football, swimming and cricket teams) meant he was left to his own devices.

He moved on to study catering at Bolton Technical College, then on to a series of uninspiring kitchen jobs, but he had no great drive until an inspired interjection by his father. He was taken to lunch at Sharrow Bay, a luxury country house hotel and restaurant in the Lake District – at the time, one of the best restaurants in the country, chosen by his father after research in the Good Food Guide. Here, Paul Heathcote saw a different side of the hospitality industry – and it was love at first sight. He told The Independent: 'It was like knowing football from kicking a ball around in the park, and then seeing Liverpool play.' He badgered Francis Coulson, chef-patron of the restaurant, for two years until he gave him a job. Over his three years there he learnt much about British food, service and devotion to cooking and hospitality, educated by head chef Coulson and his partner Brian Sack who took care of front of house.

With his ambition now ignited, he moved on to the Connaught Hotel in London in 1983, where he joined Michel Bourdin’s 50-strong brigade of highly disciplined, classical-French cooks. Now cooking in a kitchen with 13 people on every section, he told The Guardian of this experience: 'They made you go through every single process, and not cut any corners. It was a meticulously hard school, there’s no question about it. But I learned an enormous amount there.' His next position was at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, which he joined in 1985, working under the legendary Raymond Blanc. With Le Manoir’s impressive kitchen garden supplying the restaurant, Paul says it was here that he developed a passion for fresh produce. He told The Independent: 'It wasn’t uncommon to be out in the vegetable garden digging up baby leeks and carrots at 8pm.'

Always keen to return to the north of England, he accepted his first head chef job at Broughton Park near Preston, running his own kitchen by the age of 26. Already with his own restaurant in his sights, he set about learning the business side of such an enterprise and making links with local suppliers in preparation. In 1990, he opened his eponymous restaurant (later renamed the Longridge Restaurant), at the age of 29. Within nine days of opening, a gas leak saw the kitchen go up in flames, but against all odds, they were open again only 48 hours later. Within two years he was awarded his first Michelin star, as well as the Good Food Guide’s Restaurant of the Year. His second star came in 1994 – an enormous achievement in any era, but particularly so for a British-born chef cooking in early 1990s Britain – which he retained for the next four years. It remained a one-star establishment until 2003, when it was relaunched as the Longridge Restaurant, regaining its second star in the 2004 awards.