Just last week he joined the elite club of chefs who have been awarded Michelin stars for two of their restaurants.
But when it comes to the hassle of making stock, it seems Tom Kerridge is just like the rest of us.
For the celebrity chef has confessed he has never made a stock from scratch at home– and that he relies on supermarket-bought cubes or granules instead.
Tom Kerridge, pictured here with Sean Fletcher and Professor Alice Roberts for BBC’s The Food Detectives, also spoke about his weight loss journey
Speaking at Cheltenham Literature Festival, the 44-year-old, who runs two Michelin-starred gastropubs in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, sang the praises of store cupboard essentials including Bisto gravy, stock cubes and instant coffee.
‘You see lifestyle chefs on TV making their chicken stock at home – I’ve never made chicken stock at home,’ he said.
‘I’ve stolen it from work but I would never make it from scratch at home.’
He added: ‘We all have really busy lives and we all have store cupboard essentials. There’s brown sauce, red sauce and chicken Bisto at my house. There is chicken Bisto at Michel Roux’s house!
‘When you come home and you have got 20 minutes to cook yourself tea, you want to be able to do it so it focuses on flavour. Chicken Bisto might have a quite high salt content but it enhances the flavours.
‘Most of those big things like making stock take time and as someone who is busy stock cubes are really important.’
The chef added that despite the popularity of review sites such as Tripadvisor he pays no attention to online reviews for either of his restaurants.
He said: ‘I’ve not looked at an online customer review for four years. I try to pay no attention to it.
‘I like to think that if a customer is having a bad time or a poor experience they would tell us. We as a business should be approachable enough for people to give us personal feedback there and then.
‘For someone to not enjoy it then go away and give a bad review online is not really part of the deal.’
Kerridge, who has lost 11 stone over the past three years, has been teetotal for four years after giving up a diet of ‘alcohol and late night cheese toasties.’
The chef says he’s never cooked his own stock from scratch and says he uses Bisto instead
He said: ‘The weight gain wasn’t through tasting food in the kitchen. A lot of chefs are pretty thin – they are all running around.
‘It was because you have an amazing social life and alcohol and late night cheese on toast became the norm.
‘The trigger for weight loss was approaching my 40th birthday – it becomes a crossroads in your life. It was my own recognition that I need to make a change.’
Later this year he will present a new weight loss series on the BBC and he said: ‘It’s no coincidence that the first three letters of diet are die. Enjoying what you eat is the key to losing weight.’
Kerridge, who has appeared on the BBC’s Great British Menu and Masterchef, became the first chef to be awarded two Michelin stars for a pub in 2012. His second pub, The Coach, was awarded a Michelin star last week.
Speaking of the accolade, he said: ‘Receiving a Michelin star means everything. It is the most amazing coveted award that chefs try to achieve.
‘You never know when the Michelin Guide are coming and when they have been. As far as I can tell they look for quality led ingredients, perfection in terms of cooking and heart and soul, They never follow fads or fashions or who has got the best PR. They are all about the food.’