and uninspired by many of the courses offered to him, William decided to study cooking. after leaving college, he took an apprenticeship in the kitchens of Gleneagles, a world-famous hotel in Perthshire.

“When i arrived at Gleneagles, i hadn’t decided that i was going to be a pastry chef; i’d just decided that i was going to be a chef,” he recalled. “they asked me what i could do and i said that i used to make lemon tarts at college, so that was how i got started. i think it was when i was at Gleneagles that i decided i wanted to be a patissier and i felt very comfortable doing that. there were lots of girls doing it as well and i liked that!”

Following his apprenticeship at Gleneagles, William planned the next stage of his career. “i decided that i was going to work in France,” he explained. “i’d read Marco Pierre White’s book (White heat, now seminal) and i knew what Michelin stars were. i wrote to 15 3-star restaurants in France. i only got one response, which was about one paragraph in French to the effect of non! i eventually got myself into a 3-star restaurant in Belgium, which was really fascinating. i used to go into Brussels on my days off to look at the patisseries and i could see that relating to what i wanted to do.”

William eventually returned to the UK to continue his career. “i came back to london and worked with Pierre Koffman at la tante Claire,” he remembered. “that

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