You’ve got two options when eating at 108 Garage. Book a table and enjoy the more familiar à la carte or tasting menu, talk amongst yourselves and enjoy the evening. Or, if you like to be a bit nearer the action, pull up a stool at the kitchen counter and let the chefs make up a menu for you. In my opinion, this is a far better way to understand what Chris and the team are doing here. It also turns a meal into a full-blown theatre experience, as you watch the chefs communicate, plate up and talk you through what you’re about to eat.

At first, watching the kitchen can raise the heartbeat – everyone seems to be moving at 100 miles an hour, constantly ducking and diving around each other. There’s lots of communication – words such as ‘whackon’ and ‘heads!’ are thrown about while chefs grab ingredients, compose their plates and talk to the customers. ‘There’s no real hierarchy here – watching the kitchen you wouldn’t know who the gaffer was,’ says Chris. ‘I haven’t lost a member of staff to date, which is basically unheard of in the industry. Everyone just works at their absolute hardest and we get it done – I’ve been phenomenally lucky with the staff. We do mess up sometimes, and in the first few there were more profanities being thrown about than I would’ve liked, but it’s an incredible place to work.’

It’s no secret that the hospitality industry is facing a critical shortage at the moment, which is why three members of Chris’ small team had never worked in a kitchen until they came to 108 Garage. ‘When we opened I put an ad out everywhere I could,’ says Chris. ‘I got six emails and two people coming in for a trial. It was a complete joke. I think the problem we have is that we’re not a famous Michelin-starred restaurant that can offer four working days a week and look impressive on a young chef’s CV. If you know about us then you know it’s a great little place to work, but chefs don’t realise that doing a stage in a Michelin-starred kitchen will probably mean you’re three floors down picking herbs day after day. Here you get to learn so much and are in the heart of the action from day one – it’s hard work, but you get so much more out of it.’

Hard work is certainly at the core of Chris’ kitchen. While he’s a laidback, incredible friendly person who knows how to manage chefs without having to shout at them, he’s also worked seven days a week since 108 Garage opened. When we talked he’d had a seizure a few weeks before, and was back in the kitchen the next day. Even during the interview he was constantly keeping an eye on the kitchen, making sure his team were on top of things and darting in and out of conversation about the latest produce coming in and little changes he wanted to make to dishes. ‘I work non-stop but there’s a reason for that,’ he tells me. ‘In the first few months of opening we had visits from Michelin and we weren’t expecting that at all. I think it spurred me on a bit, and I want to just improve and improve and improve.’

I echoed the sentiments of the Michelin inspector who told Chris to take a day off – he looked in desperate need of a break – and was relieved to hear he was spending four days in Japan the very next day. But you can’t deny that all those hours in the kitchen have paid off. 108 Garage is an exciting place to be; you can feel the sheer energy bursting from the kitchen during service, and despite the incredible pressure that must come from knocking out incredible food in such a small space, the chefs seem to relish it. Add to that a menu that seems to change not daily but sometimes twice a day, a pure reliance on what produce has come in that morning and a fully booked dining room during lunch and dinner, and you can start to understand the appeal a place like this has.

All of this very nearly never happened – Chris was treated as a bit of an unknown when 108 Garage opened, but he’s got some seriously impressive credentials. For the past twenty years he’s worked in the kitchen at Hambleton Hall, learnt about flavour combinations with John Campbell, staged at the three Michelin star Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy and mastered the classics under Phil Howard. However, when The Square closed, he was ready to walk away from cheffing completely. ‘I was completely broke and couldn’t even afford to pay rent,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to go back and in my mind was 100% done with cooking, so I decided to become a potter, as I’d already studied art and I love my bowls and ceramics. However, it was a while until I realised you simply don’t get paid for being a potter – you really have to do it for the love.’

What convinced Chris to get back in the game was the way Luca let him work. He gave him 100% sign off on the menu, letting him do whatever he wanted. ‘I’ve been promised that before but it never actually happens,’ says Chris. ‘It starts off well but then when the business isn’t doing as well as it’s supposed to they start giving you menus of places they’ve visited and liked, or start asking you to cook things you really don’t want to.’

It’s safe to say 108 Garage has now cemented itself as a restaurant with a bright future ahead of itself. But Chris and Luca are already looking ahead. Currently the restaurant turns away 200 people a week because it’s all booked up, but the duo’s new place Southam Street opening around the corner will put an end to that. ‘There’ll be a sushi master working the raw bar and a sake room upstairs, then downstairs will be a grill-based brasserie,’ says Chris, who is a big fan of Japanese food. He’ll still be cooking at 108 Garage, but will take on the role of executive chef there as well. There’s also a New York outpost of 108 Garage opening in March 2018, where Chris hopes he’ll be more of a restaurateur. Oh, and there’s the cookbook coming out next year too. I just hope he finds the time to take the occasional day off.