Josh Emett's recipe for success

With two Michelin stars and a new family, Josh Emett says he has finally found the balance he has been looking for. Photo / NZ Herald

Every night Josh Emett's mum saw the Waipa Delta steamboat cruise by their Waikato home, with her son out the back peeling spuds, she'd ask herself the same question: "Oh God, is this really what he wants to do?"

He'd always been extraordinarily single-minded. As an 18-month-old, he managed to clamber on to the roof of their home. Then there was the phase, a few years later, that had them nailing planks of wood to the bottom of their gate to stop him busting out and following their cows on his trike - he just tunnelled under and rode off anyway. But his life turned to food when his grandparents gave him an Alison Holst cookbook for his 13th birthday.

At first it meant a tastier solution to the hunger pangs the strapping lad always contracted as he climbed off his school bus.

"He'd run up the drive, dump his bag, put a pan on and start cooking straight away," remembers his mother, Raewyn. "He always seemed to be hungry."

But that initial enthusiasm rapidly evolved into something different, a drive powerful enough to help him endure what he calls the "world of shit" he has had to go through to become New Zealand's first Michelin-starred chef and the man behind Gordon Ramsay's American restaurants.

Though his reputation has been established in the Hell's kitchens of England and the United States, his stars are about to come closer to home.

As well as a planned television series detailing his impressive career to date, the 35-year-old will in January shift his partner and child from New York to Melbourne where he'll soon be opening and running Maze, Ramsay's first Australian restaurant.

Speaking from his office in London, Ramsay - famous for his pugnacious temperament in the kitchen - says Emett arrived like a "meteor".

"From the start he was incredibly articulate, incredibly controlled. He doesn't hold back but he never panics. He's unflappable. This is what he was born to do, he has this amazing connection with food and works really hard to get that magic across. I was surprised to hear he wasn't born in a convection oven."

The unofficial account of Emett's first day in Ramsay's restaurant, Royal Hospital Road, has the foul-mouthed Scot looking distinctly unimpressed while telling the fresh-faced wannabe from New Zealand that it would take a lot more than a flash suntan to survive in his employ.

But nine years on, the tan is still flash and Emett is one of the biggest wheels in the Ramsay empire as the go-to man for it's farthest outposts.

Whatever ends up appearing on Emett's first Melbourne menu, this is an opportunity you could almost date back to the days when he'd nick dog biscuits and chook pellets on the family farm in Ngahinapouri, a hamlet west of Hamilton.

"Even back then, I think I always knew what I wanted to do," says Emett.

"I also knew what I didn't want to do. I'm very outdoorsy and into my sport, so I definitely didn't want to do anything 9 to 5 and I didn't like the idea of having to wear a suit or anything that involved university. I just wanted to get on with it, so I left school when I was 17. It wasn't for me and I wasn't interested. My parents went away on holiday for about four weeks and I just hung out at home. When they got back it was like 'What the hell? Go and get yourself a job'."

After the family moved to Hamilton he jacked in his part-time job as a resthome kitchenhand and started culinary school at Waikato Polytech. He felt liberated and 100 per cent committed.

While his classmates were blowing their student grants on beer, he took on a variety of jobs - including spud detail on the Waipa Delta - and paid his own way.

He ended his course with a seven-week work experience post at Auckland's Cin Cin, which in the early 90s was one of the jewels in the city's foodie scene. He fell in with a good crew and did well enough to be offered a job.

These were wild times, according to his kitchenmate Warren Turnbull, now owner of Sydney restaurant Assiette.

"Josh was a total adrenalin junkie - you have to be in this job - and a real rocker. It didn't matter if it was racing cars or bungy jumping, he was into it with music blaring. In winter we'd finish a shift, jump in the car and head south for a quick ski, stop off at his mum's for breakfast on the way, then get back in time for the next shift. It was all 100 miles an hour."

While Turnbull says his mate didn't talk up his ambitions, Emett was already saving hard for his move to England. But he was still uncertain about whether he could cut it as a chef or would instead have to try his hand at something like farm work.

Visa issues gave him a year to ponder his options until an opportunity arose to work at London's Coast restaurant under head chef Steve Terry, a man who learned his trade from the original kitchen wildman, Marco Pierre White.

"That's when life got serious," says Emett.

"I got a hard time and took a lot of bullshit, but that's just how things work over there. The guy in charge demands respect, and when he can cook rings around you, you can't help but offer that respect. Don't talk, just deliver; that's the environment I thrive in because kitchens are incredibly competitive. Everyone is constantly trying to do everything better than the guy next to them. I'd get to work two hours early and leave two hours late. I wanted to work harder, faster, more organised and cleaner than everyone and I would manipulate anything I had to make that work for me. If you can't take it, well life will get pretty unhealthy."

After two years his visa ran out. Emett wasn't ready to come home, so Australia seemed a good option. He arrived in Melbourne with a dirty backpack, the clothes he was wearing and no money. But he did have a personal recommendation that got him on board with rising star and ex-pat Yorkshireman Donovan Cooke who had opened Melbourne's hottest new eatery, Est Est Est.

For the next three years life was brilliant and horrible in equal measure. Though the restaurant was a runaway success - it was constantly booked out three to six months in advance - the experience nearly broke him.

The kitchen was tiny with oversized ovens, so it was always stinking hot and uncomfortable. The only natural light was in in the short corridor leading to the fridge, an area which also served as the work station for two of the five chefs.

"It was a fantastic place to be, but I was miserable," says Emett.

"I didn't know anyone and saw nothing of the city. All I did was work f***ing hard for six days then sleep all of Sunday. I didn't have a problem maintaining that, but looking back I was pretty skinny. I wasn't all that angry; more determined and extremely ambitious. I knew that if I was ever going to work where I wanted I had to flog myself. But you have to keep your priorities right because booze and drugs, this business is full of them. If you don't keep the end goal in mind you'll go off the rails completely and there are plenty who do."

Cooke, now chef de cuisine at the prestigious Derby Restaurant in the Happy Valley Clubhouse of The Hong Kong Jockey Club, says he knew right away Emett would be a success. It was Cooke who later recommended him to Gordon Ramsay.

"In places like Est Est Est it's extreme pressure all the time. It's all shitting and blinding with no let-up, so you have to be strong mentally and physically while keeping the light touch needed to produce quality," Cooke says.

"It's hard and it doesn't hurt if you're slightly insane because at that level it can't just be a job, it's got to be your life.

"Josh was only 22 but he was carrying a lot of responsibility. We got on really well because he didn't talk much, he just did it; no questions, no challenges, just delivery, and always with AC/DC or Lep Zep on full bore ...

"He did have a bit of temper at times mind, he looked like he going to chew his jaw off, and he's a big lad, so I had a couple of pans nearby, just in case I had to clock him."

After three years Emett had to get out.

"I needed to get back to Europe and that's all there was to it."

According to Turnbull, his friend's gruff countryboy persona couldn't hide his exhaustion or the impact of a bad relationship break-up.

The rescue plan was for a short spell on a superyacht to earn some fast money, then a year off before getting a job in France. But more visa problems saw him back in London for the start of the new millennium.

Cooke's reference earned him a trial with Ramsay, who had just won his first Michelin stars and some television fame through the fly-on-the-wall documentary, Boiling Point.

"I loved my first day there," says Emett.

"It was absolutely ferocious, totally nuts. There were some really hard blokes, a few I knew from Coast. It's just like you see on television, it's all about food and perfection, to the point that it's completely anal. Nothing can go wrong, ever. The first couple of days weren't so bad - start at 7.30am and finish at 1am, then it gradually got worse and I got all wound-up in it. Then I'd be starting at 6am and just going for it."

Ramsay's quality control wasn't just about the food leaving the kitchen, he was equally demanding about maintenance, and he came down hard on anyone who fell short. From produce to implements, everything was checked, double-checked and then checked again.

Aside from constant attention to hygiene, the fridge was also reorganised twice a day. Every Friday, when the normal shift ended at 1am, the kitchen would be pulled to bits. The fridge, including motors, was cleaned and vacuumed, and the stoves were dismantled, cleaned and then reassembled. It was high pressure, all day, every day.

"So there was a lot of big bust-ups, real shouting matches," says Emett.

"They'd erupt with no warning and end just as quickly. For the first couple of months I kept my head down, then I had some pretty heavy bust-ups myself. You really have to show you'll stand your ground and won't take any shit, then they left me alone. In all honesty, it's a fight ..."

To the point of sabotage?

"That does go on. But I'm straight up. If I suspect anything I'll go at them and get in their face. I've always had that attitude, when there's three or four of us and one's not pulling their weight, I'll tell him to go stand in the corner and I'll do both our jobs. Anyone else? I'll do your job as well. I'll just come in to work earlier ... That's how you have to be to succeed, that and the fear of failure, that's a huge thing for me. It's a horrible feeling when something goes wrong. All I've only ever wanted was to be successful, run a good restaurant I can be proud of and, you know, accomplish something."

The first sign that he was on his way came at Halloween 2001 when Ramsay included Emett in the team that would revamp Claridges, the latest addition to the Savoy Group.

"That was a massive, massive success," says Emett.

"Absolute mayhem and it never let up, but it was one of the best years of my life and to my mind was the beginning of everything that's followed."

To spice things up, Ramsay installed a table in the kitchen where big-monied punters could watch the action.

"It was a madhouse. We'd shout and scream, lots of banter and bullshit, and we'd get them to cook something as well. Good food and good wine, exactly how it should be, so they'd spend anything up to £15,000 [$34,000] in a night."

It couldn't last.

Having shown himself to be a safe pair of hands, Emett was taken out to lunch by Ramsay in 2003 and offered a bigger role in the reinvention of another new purchase, the enormous Savoy Grill.

This time he got to design the menu, and with his boss - Ramsay's righthand man Mark Sargeant - regularly called away, Emett often ended up running the show. They did well enough to win a Michelin star after only seven months. If the money was great, the stress may have been greater. But on the bright side, he bought his first home.

"That was a massive achievement for me. All through my 20s I'd had nothing in my bank account and nothing tying me anywhere. Nowhere felt like home and that's quite an important thing for me. So, now I had somewhere that felt like mine and no visa problems to worry about."

On the dark side, he was already seen as a drill sergeant, but now he was angry as well.

"It was the grind, the pressure, the bullshit, everything. It just got harder and harder and harder. If one stage of my career ever got to me, that was it. It got to the point where I was asking 'what the f*** am I doing?' and whether it was worth it anymore. I wasn't in the best place personally and had problems at home because work was always number one. When that balance is wrong then everything suffers."

Emett had been engaged but says "it didn't work out".

"One day I just got up and left. Then there was another girl, that was okay, a bit up and down ... I was just never there. Then they'd be 'let's spend more time together' and I'm asking 'where's my time? Where's Josh time?' That's one of the hardest things to deal with and I knew I had to figure it out."

He admits to undergoing some therapy to help get his life in order - working under the hammer for almost 10 years doesn't allow time for introspection or problem-solving. Then, after three years at the Savoy, he told Ramsay he was done.

He took three months off and came back to New Zealand to consider his future.

He was back in London when Ramsay called to ask if he wanted to go to New York. Ramsay had opened a restaurant there, but the chef he'd put in charge hadn't been able to handle it and returned home after only three months. Emett jumped at it and landed in another difficult situation.

"That first year ... the shit we had to put up with from the unions and trying to understand their mentality ... I mean we had people refusing to do their jobs, so everything was turned upside down and shaken. We changed everything we normally did and that's been a good thing; when you can't change something, adapt. It wasn't great fun but I've got a great staff with me now and it's working really well."

For the past three years Emett has been in charge not only of London restaurant Maze, which specialises in tapas-style Asian/French cuisine, but also the associated Gordon Ramsay at The London, New York, and, over in Los Angeles, Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood.

He's now won two Michelin stars (for the New York restaurant), which he proudly says it retained last month, and appeared on a cable network cooking competition, Chopped, which he won.

He's also found time for sport and has fitted in several Olympic distance triathlons. But most importantly, Emett met the love of his life, Helen, and has an infant son to dote on.

"I think I've finally found that balance I've been searching for. For the past 16 or so years I've put myself through a whole world of shit, but after all the sacrifices and all the bullshit I'm really happy to have come out the other side. It's done. I've proved myself to myself, ticked all the boxes and from now on I can do things on my own terms."

So, Josh Time has finally dawned. Though it will initially have to be enjoyed in Melbourne - apart from a Queenstown stopover to work with the Amisfield Wine Company and a date with the Coast to Coast multisport race - Emett has high hopes of returning to New Zealand to promote local cuisine and produce, and get more of our chefs on to the world stage. But that can wait.

As he says, home is always within easy reach.

Wherever he goes, Alison Holst's New Zealand Radio and Television Cookbook goes with him.

"I got it down last weekend to make the family a pavlova ... You can't beat it, I reckon."