Despite the best efforts of recruitment drives and marketing campaigns, professional kitchens have traditionally struggled to pitch themselves as career paths for the long haul; vacancies pigeonholed instead as part-time or stop-gap work. It's not uncommon for the most successful of chefs, even, to have initially overlooked it until a twist of fate or nudge in the right direction encouraged them to think again. Pip Lacey is a prime example. Though she’d spent years working front of house and was a keen cook, it wasn’t until she was twenty-seven that she realised her calling had been in front of her all along. By that point, she’d studied an art foundation course, graduated in graphic design, explored professional snowboarding, launched a screen printing business and even risen through the hospitality ranks.

‘Even as assistant manager at Med Kitchen, I still wasn’t thinking it was going to be something I did forever,’ she laughs. ‘It was my career at the time, and I was happy climbing the ladder and learning a lot, but I just didn't see it.’ She – and we – have a friend to thank for the realisation that, maybe, her love of cooking could be more than a hobby. ‘It’s easy to not connect it, because it’s something you do every day, even though it had probably been staring me in the face for years,’ she smiles. ‘I had been in the industry since I was younger and loved it – I loved working front of house. I absolutely loved the service, making sure everything was right, that pressure and buzz.'

Pip’s unfaltering work ethic would have led her to success sooner or later, but a twist of fate landed her a rather helpful first step on the cheffing ladder. While applying for a commis chef job with Gordon Ramsay's group, she ticked the wrong box when asked if she needed a visa to work, resulting in a speedy rejection. Keen to explain the error, Pip phoned the recruiters and, when they pointed out her lack of kitchen experience, persuaded them to give her a shot. ‘I was saying ‘give me a chance, give me a chance' and the lady said ‘are you mad? Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?’ But she told me to go to the York and Albany with whites and knives.’ So she did, armed with borrowed whites and hastily-bought knives ('they were the worst, with big, plastic green handles, but they were sharp,' she laughs). While her first day is largely a blur, a couple of memories stick out – including injuring herself while cutting the butter.

Her focus, from then, was simple – catch up on lost time. ‘I remember [head chef Colin Buchan] sitting me down and saying ‘look, you’re slow, but you’ve got the right attitude’. That’s what I believe, too – you can’t teach the right attitude, but you can teach someone how to cook. He said ‘don’t make the same mistake twice, concentrate and learn’. I took those words and ran with them. I was twenty-seven and fully aware I was behind in years. I worked so much because I loved it – I loved that every day I was learning something new.’ Fresh to a professional kitchen (along with the pace, personalities and, as she puts it, ‘occasional bad eggs’), Pip was a blank canvas, with no bad habits to ditch. ‘I didn’t even want to pretend I knew how to do things because I had cooked a bit at home,’ she says. ‘Instead it was like I’d not done anything at all, literally not even strained some broccoli. I put it out of my head.’