Interview: Rick Stein

Stein's travels have taken him to many far flung corners of the planet seeking out fine flavours and irresistable ingredients but the famous fish chef is a rare visitor to Canary Wharf.

Despite having Billingsgate, Britain's biggest fish market, on it's doorstep, Stein admitted he is rarely here, and has not yet tried any of the restaurants in the area, not even fellow TV chef Jamie Oliver's newly opened outlet.

He said: "I haven't been down this way much, apart from going to Excel, but I intend to. I didn't realise Jamie had opened here. I've been to his restaurant in Brighton and it was really good. It's a clever idea."

The chef, who runs several restaurants in Padstow in Cornwall, has no plans to follow the Oliver example and open in Canary Wharf.

He said: "No, there won't be a Rick Stein one. I'm quite keen to keep it local to Cornwall at the moment. I don't know about the future but I quite like the idea of people having to come to Cornwall to eat the food."

Stein, 62, could be forgiven for overlooking east London, as he's been further afield making his latest TV show, Far Eastern Odyssey, the book of which brought him to Waterstone's in Jubilee Place mall on Monday.

Part cookbook, part travelog of his journey from Vietnam to Bangladesh, he is keen for people to try cooking the cuisine themselves.

He said: "I've long felt south east asian cooking is very popular with people. It's perceived as very vibrant in flavour, healthy and also quite easy to do.

"Everything is cooked really quickly, apart from a few long-simmered curries, but the preparation is quite complicated because to really enjoy really good south east asian cooking you have to make the spice pastes first. But once you've done that it's a delight.

"One of the things that's really encouraged me is I'm getting lots of emails back from people saying they've tried six recipes already, all of them a great success and a massive hit.

"I'm pleased because it was a worry because there are so many books around on making meals in two minutes or meals with five ingredients, it's neither of those things.

"I feel there are serious cooks out there who are buying the book so I'm very happy with it."

No sooner is one odyssey over than Stein revealed plans for his next sojourn, and it's not to West India Quay.

He said: "We're quite keen to go to Spain. Like many British people, I've got a long history of going to Spain. The food's interesting, though not as immediately appealing as Italian, but every time I go there I find things that are truly special.

"We're going to call it something like Secret Spain. It would be really nice to go somewhere like Benidorm and find a restaurant just round the corner that none of the Brits go to. We haven't sketched out exactly where we're going but we'd go to places like Asturias and the Basque region.

"It'll be nice to be back in Europe because I like linking food and art, literature particularly. It was harder in South East Asia. Obviously there are people who have been there like Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham, but I think a full-on European country will give me the opportunity to quote Hemingway and Llorca and everybody else."

The TV chef phenomenon shows no signs of abating. For Stein, whose main business is his restaurant empire in Padstow, it's been a helpful meal ticket but not one he takes for granted.

He said: "I've been making TV programmes since 1995 and after the first two or three years the BBC sort of implied it was all over. I thought that was it, it's not going to last, but it has.

"The programmes have moved off in various different directions now. It's not just about being in a studio cooking. Now you've got mine, which is food and travel, and Jamie's, which is latterly food and issues, and food and nightmares, which Gordon Ramsay's were.

"Food is so much part of our life that it's now accepted as part of TV as well."

Stein is best known for his fish cookery, although he was keen to stress he has a wider repertoire than that.

He said: "I did my book called Seafood, which was my seafood bible, and having done that I was faced with what else could I say about fish?

"Though that was five or six years ago, so I could do another fish book, which I'm thinking about, but I felt at the time that I don't just cook fish actually, so I started doing the Food Heroes series, which I was really involved with.

"I felt British produce was always slightly not applauded for what it was, and that worked. Then I got into a bit of food and travel, which is what I'm currently doing.

"It's certainly is a nice life. I remember when we were doing the French Odyssey, when we went down the canal, David Pritchard the director said our boss at the BBC, the commissioning editor, was coming over for a couple of days. David was worried because we were having far too much fun.

"I said that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be recording some very happy, jolly times to make people want to go to France. But I can see his point, there are some nerves about licence payers money, so I said to him 'let's have a horrid time'. It could have actually been horrid, of course."

Stein first appeared on screen with the late Keith Floyd way back in 1985. He has not looked back since, and admitted he still has a healthy appetite for exploring new food ideas.

He said: "It's something that endlessly fascinates me. The whole business of food and eating out, is so complex and so wonderfully interesting, I don't think I'd ever get bored with it."

With a new series under consideration and a book to promote, as well as keeping his corner of Cornwall a foodie paradise, it comes as a surprise to find Stein still has time to be involved in a project on the other side of the world.

He said: "I'm opening a restaurant in Australia in two weeks, although it's not quite the same thing. It's about three and a half hours south of Sydney, on the coast.

"It's not actually my restaurant, but I'm doing the menu and getting one of the chefs over from Padstow, but it's a very similar set up to Padstow. It's in a sort of little fishing port, with very good local fish, and the same sort of people coming back year after year from places like Sydney for family holidays. I see a similarity with Padstow there, so hopefully it will work."

Of course, there is always the telly work to keep the wolf from the door should things go wrong, although there is one show Stein ruled out appearing on.

He said: "I've never fancied Ready, Steady, Cook. I'm certainly friendly with virtually all the chefs that have gone on it. But basically I'd be dead scared of cocking it all up."

Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey is out now, priced £25.