The customer is always right: ‘Even the couple who had sex in our laundry room’ — theguardian.com

Chef-owner, the Crown, Burchetts Green, Berkshire Back when I started as a chef, I saw someone flitting, like a shadow, down the long back corridor from the kitchen. It scared me right up to my tonsils. I discovered a man who was very fatigued, scuffed, and sunburnt. He looked very down on his luck. In a posh voice he asked: “Can I have a drink and something to eat?” I took his stinking coat, hung it up, helped him into a lovely white starched coat and trilby I had spare, then filled him up with grub. The poor bugger asked my name while I put loads of biscuits in his pockets before he left. Thirty years later, after the Crown won a Michelin star, a very smart couple started coming in, then one Friday they left a letter in an envelope under a napkin, which began: “You’ll not remember me, but you were the young chef with a Ready Brek smile who helped me out when I was at a real low point.” Beside the letter, there was his gift of a very generous cheque.

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