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Tommy Banks - How Being Bedridden For 2 Years With A Serious Illness Led Him To Create The World’s Number 1 Restaurant & Win 2 Michelin Stars!
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Step inside one of the wildest careers in modern British cooking as we sit down with Tommy Banks, once the youngest British Michelin starred chef, Great British Menu champion, author, farmer, preservation obsessive, cricket prodigy in a past life, and the man behind both The Black Swan at Oldstead and Roots in York. From hand milking cows on a tiny family farm to being crowned TripAdvisor’s number one restaurant in the world, Tommy charts the long, strange path that took him from near-empty dining rooms to global recognition. Along the way we hear about the early days of The Black Swan, complete with RAF chefs who bullied teenage Tommy at the sink, and his twenty-something imposter syndrome phase where he cheerfully admits to cooking straight out of Phil Howard’s cookbook before finding his own style.
The stories in this episode are the stuff of modern kitchen folklore. Tommy talks us through the heartbreaking illness at eighteen that ended his cricket dreams, the fierce work ethic that followed, and the moment Kenny Atkinson sat down for dinner and told him he had to get on Great British Menu. We hear about the ferocious creativity behind his fermentation rooms, the Douglas fir desserts, the legendary crab and beetroot dish, and the umeboshi-style strawberries now copied across the country. There is also the infamous pie-van heist that turned into a national news frenzy with Tommy fielding calls from Radio 1 through Radio 5 on the same day as he begged thieves to at least give the five thousand pies to charity. And of course the blackmail era of two-year waiting lists after The Black Swan went viral.
Tommy also gives us a hilarious and honest tour of life running an expanding Yorkshire empire. From the diners flying in by helicopter to tell him his restaurant is not the best in the world, to the email from an industry “expert” advising him to shut down the General Tarleton immediately, to his strict refusal to cook vegan food because he cannot grow lemons on the farm, the stories land one after another. We dig into Yorkshire pub culture, his dream blowout dinners, his disdain for truffle, and the perfection of a proper Sunday roast at The Abbey Inn. This is Tommy Banks in full flow: sharp, grounded, funny, straight talking, wildly inventive, and endlessly proud of his little corner of Yorkshire. A genuine must-listen.
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