Try four weeks of The Spectator absolutely free. And for this month only, you'll receive a Spectator

wireless phone charger. Go to www.com.uk forward slash charger. Hello. We recorded this

episode of Table Talk a little earlier in the year, before the current situation

with COVID-19 had arisen. So if you hear a conversation about restaurants and dinner parties,

with no mention of social distancing or isolation, that's why. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

Hello and welcome to you Table Talk, the spectator's Food and Drink Podcast.

I'm Lyra Prendergast.

And I'm Olivia Potts.

And we're delighted today to be joined by John Williams, who's been the executive chef of the rich since 2004.

In 2008, he was awarded an MBE for services to hospitality, and he's cooked for all sorts of impressive and interesting dignitaries, including Margaret Thatcher, who he cooked the 70th birthday banquet for, and Her Majesty of the Queen, who he cooked for on her 70th and 80th birthdays.

John, thank you very much for joining us. We're actually here in the kitchens of the Ritz, so you can probably hear the background noise of the Ritz kitchen. The hammering of

the butcher's block. It's just sound effects. We'll start where we always start at the beginning.

You were born in South Shields in Tyne and Weir. Can you tell us about your earliest memories of food?

Well, there's certainly a time with my mother.

I had twins that were just slightly younger than me, two years younger than me.

And apparently I was a very, very greedy child.

And I don't know if you know, whether they were allowed to use the word, but russks,

Farlies Rusks.

Well, apparently, I used to wake up in a mood when I was a kid, and I was obviously

two-year-old, three-year-old.

And my mother started giving the twins rusks, but they used to put them in the milk.

He used to melt them in the milk, but I used to steal them.

...