William Curley, chef patissier who has worked with numerous Michelin starred chefs and was awarded the ‘Master of Culinary Arts’ by The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts.
We dig a little deeper to find out what they are hiding under those chef whites – next up is William Curley, chef patissier who has worked with numerous Michelin starred chefs and was awarded the ‘Master of Culinary Arts’ by The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts.
William Curley was raised in Fife for most of his childhood in a working class family where his father worked as a dock worker. However, despite the humble beginnings, it wasn’t long before William Curley realised that he wanted to devote his life to fine food.
William has trained with some of the country’s finest chefs including Pierre Koffmann, Marco Pierre White and Raymond Blanc. His ambitions took him to The Savoy Hotel, where he became the youngest chef patissier in history.
But his accomplishments don’t end there, since then William has won Britain’s Best Chocolatier by The Academy of Chocolate four times, a gold medal at The Culinary Olympics and achieved the Master of Culinary Arts by the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts. The highest accolade awarded to chefs in the UK.
Give us a brief now of your day to day role, your operators that you run and a little bit about William Curley what are you up to these days?
My wife Suzue and I have our own business which consists of two patisserie and chocolate shops, one based in Richmond on Thames which opened in 2004, and one based in the centre of London in Belgravia which is now in its second year. It's very exciting, and it's a growing little business. We try to do everything artisanal. We currently employ and train 11 or 12 young and talented chefs within our business. Both the Richmond and Belgravia stores have small kitchens but there's also what I call the Curley Kitchen, a modest production kitchen in Twickenham which is great for Suzue and I as we live close by. The location is great as we are contained and can make all the chocolates, biscuits, cakes and bases for the patisserie, in the production kitchen. The smaller kitchens in both shops are really just where me and my team finish the products off. The Belgravia store is a lot bigger than the one we are sitting in now (Richmond), it has a great little dessert bar, we also offer brunch, and have the space to do a do a lot of demonstrations. It's a very, very active sort of atmosphere, with something new and exciting going on all the time.
11 chefs that's bigger than most Pastry departments in all but a few hotels these days isn't it?
It probably is. As a business we want to do things right, we want to get young people, good people, and we want to show people how to do the right things in the right way. Both shops are currently doing very well and hopefully this year we're going to open a third outlet so that will certainly keep us busy. It's really all about doing things the right way, the proper way, if that makes sense? We always try to buy the best ingredients. We use the best butter, the best cream, and what I believe to be the best chocolate - Amedei, a small company based in Tuscany. Everything we use I believe to be the best - and that does cost money.
You've won numerous awards for your chocolate?
Yes, we have been voted Best British Chocolatier by The Academy of Chocolate for the last few years which is "
Is that good for business as well?
Yes absolutely, it is printed on the windows of our stores and it has been and continues to be great for business. The business, although called William Curley, is an equal venture with my wife and business partner Suzue, this partnership along with the great chefs we have working with us is what makes our business what it is.
Is your wife a pastry chef?
Yes she trained at Cordon Bleu at Claridge's and then at the Savoy where I met her. Suzue is extremely talented in her own right. It's a team thing.
So let's go back seven years then before you opened the business, let's talk about William Curley the pastry chef. You've been to some fantastic operations, Gleneagles, the Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons and the Savoy, just three that spring to mind.
Well it began, like I am sure it does for a lot of young guys and girls, after I finished at school and was not really sure what I wanted to do or where to go. I enrolled in the local technical college, Glenrothes in Fife Okay. I enrolled at that time of City and Guilds I was 16. The great thing about cooking is I think you either know you want to do it or you don't and I immediately did. I started the course in Glenrothes and thought, 'Gosh I really like this. I really enjoy this.' It wasn't purely patisserie or chocolate making it involved cooking as well.
Okay so you didn't think at an early stage that you wanted to be a Pastry Chef?
I didn't even know it really existed! I thought you could be a baker but being a Patissier, I thought to myself, wow what was that? I think it was probably when I arrived at Gleneagles that I made the decision that I wanted to become a Patissier. 
So it could have been very different if you had said, "I'll go on the sauce."
Yes, it could have been completely different big man who knows. It was that sort of defining moment but I suppose it was one of those moments I didn't think about"¦I just did it"¦ I enjoyed it and whether I'm artistic or not, other people can work that one out, but I certainly like the creative, artistic part of being a patissier and I enjoy that immensely. One thing just led to another and I settled in at Gleneagles Hotel. I remember when the Roux brothers first patisserie book came out and that really made me think "wow", the whole thing just picked up momentum as I went along.
How different is Pierre Koffman to Raymond Blanc and Le Manoir?
Hugely that's why I went to work at Le Manoir. Again you're developing and learning, and you slowly start to understand the different types of cuisine, you know, Pierre's obviously from the Basque region of France and he has those south western influences and his food's very deep, very rich, very classical.
How long were you at Le Manoir?
I was there for a couple of years. And from there I went to Le Manoir, and then back to London, I always liked London and I still do. I joined Marco (Pierre White) where I spent a couple of years.
He had a very talented team then didn't he?
Man he had Robert Reid, he had Thierry Busset, he had"¦who else did he have, Greg Nicholson, I think he had the lot and the difference between say Marco and Pierre (Koffman), Pierre (Koffman) had hugely young talented"¦no talent is a strong word, a lot of young inexperienced chefs and Pierre rode the kitchen. He(Pierre Koffman) could do every dish, do every section ((laughingly)), you know, touch every plate if you like and without him there, it would fall apart, it would be a little bit unfair but he was the backbone of the whole kitchen. I'm not going to say Marco wasn't because without him there things would change but he had enough chefs there to run five restaurants, you know, it was like a sort of"¦
Well he was charging 40 quid a main course, which was big money back then, he had to cover the costs somehow.
Yes he probably did, but again working with Marco, was a great experience and I have got a lot of time for Marco, definitely, he was the guy who changed.
He was the guy who changed a lot of things wasn't he, everybody who looked at Marco thought, "˜Wow!'
Absolutely and when White Heat came out I think I must have been at Gleneagles then and I remember looking at it and thinking to myself, "Gosh, wow!' you know, "this is". White Heat changed everything, I think it probably gave me, and people like myself, the confidence to be our own boss and strive to work, I saw the possibility to do my own thing. I then won a scholarship and went to work in France. I worked for Marc Meneau at L'Esperance. I should have got restaurants out of my system but then I probably should have rented a shop, but I really did like that buzz of restaurants so much, and I still do. I still miss that buzz now. I came back after the scholarship and I then started to look at where to go next and I really knew that I had to change, I couldn't ((laughingly)) go to another restaurant it had to be a hotel and I looked at two or three and the Savoy was probably the one that was the most tempting.
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Why wre we not seeing another generation of William Curleys coming through because yes in a restaurant they can be creative because they've got that input but at the end of the day they're doing six plates maybe.
Ultimately it's Marco Pierre White, Raymond Blanc, Pierre Koffman, those are the names that people know the Chefs, the head chefs. Le Manoir perhaps is one of the exceptions because it's a big operation and maybe Benoit has been able to flourish but most operations, if you asked who's the pastry chef, say at the Square, you know, he's got two stars, he was getting tipped for three stars earlier this week and maybe rightly so but I don't think you're ever going to find out who the pastry chef is, and I think that's part of the problem, yes being in a restaurant being creative and dynamic is easier than in a hotel for sure.
It's quite a new thing only in the last seven/eight years that it's happened more and more chefs are appearing in hotel restaurants. There was a time when at Claridge's, The Savoy and The Mandarin, the Executive head chef still cooked for the restaurant.
Now we have superstar chefs it has changed, you're right for a pastry cook I think it probably does become less creative, that's more frustrating, possibly.
The problem for me with patisserie, and getting young people involved, I think is a little bit deeper than that and I think, as an industry, we need to look more at how we view ourselves as an industry, I hate saying television would change it but, probably partly it could.
Does the industry have to say: Well hang on a minute let's start giving people a good income, fairly good hours," or they're going to lose them?
Absolutely what you've said is bang on, I think if you want to work 15, 16 hours a day, I mean I've got the guys that work for me five of them have been with me for over three years and their average working day for us would be 11 hours maybe, and there's times it can be a bit longer but then there's times it can be a little bit shorter. It's not all about hours and I pay them reasonably well.
They're not going to become millionaires working for me; I think we train them well. So I think payment's one thing but it's also what people learn and their development also. Striking a happy medium across the board but one thing is for sure I think if you work them like dogs they'll do a year and they'll go, that used to be the name of the game and I think that's changing anyway but that has to change.
Why did you decide to do your own thing?
I spent years in restaurants working mainly for independent people, which always gave me the focus, and I knew that one day I would do my own thing. I suppose my shops are my little restaurants and I kind of run them a little bit like that for good and bad, that's what I used to When I was with Pierre (Koffman) I would take the night bus to Paris and go and look at the shops in Paris and think to myself, "˜Oh my God this would be so good to do.'
And even when I was with Pierre Romeyer I'd be going to Brussels and doing the same, of course I didn't have a clue how to do it all but for me at the early age it was all about getting knowledge, skills, developing myself the best I can to prepare for opening the business. Of course there's much, much more to it than that and I'm very fortunate because my wife, before she became a chef, was in business management.
So in many respects her sort of background and her understanding allowed us to do it a little bit easier. I mean anyone who opens their own business, I've got the utmost admiration for them because it is a very tough thing to do and when we started our business we actually sold a property to get enough investment which is quite scary now when we look back, but if you have an idea or a vision that you want to do so much, then you should go away and do it, and if you believe in what you're doing,I think you've always got to believe in what you're doing.
I think that was the key for me when I finished at the Savoy, it was to start my own business one way or another and whether it was going to be making chocolates, to sell them online or having a little market stall, or finding a shop, these were all things that we considered. I think having a shop was always the preference because ultimately I'm trying to build my own little brand.
Can you talk about the new shop?
It's going to be probably a concession. I can't tell you when it is. The whole Japanese connection's big for us. It's a little bit of a complicated market to get into. It's not as easy as maybe selling into Europe. It's all about having the right distribution channels. We've got a short shelf life product which doesn't help but a lot of European chefs have been very, very successful in Japan and European brands, in fact British brands, you know, Paul Smith's. But we'll see what happens. That might take a bit longer but it's something we're looking at.
