In the Hot seat - Tom Kerridge

Are you happy with the term gastro pub?

"I hate the term. It's awful. So many places can call themselves gastro pubs, but they have a New Zealand chef in the kitchen cooking kangaroo steaks with salsa verde. We are a pub dining room. We may have nice Riedel glasses, good quality crockery and cutlery, but we keep the service friendly and informal, and try to keep everything very user-friendly."

Do you have any pet hates? Can you think of any crimes against food?

"People using tomato concasse 'for colour'. People putting sprigs of herbs on a dish 'for colour'. Bad garnishing generally. It's just so unnecessary and there's no need for it."

What do you think of chefs trying to emulate the likes of Heston Blumenthal?

"What Heston does is fantastic, but Heston Blumenthal is Heston Blumenthal. The problem is when 24-year-old head chefs who don't have any training whatsoever decide they want to make the foams and the jellies when they don't have any idea about how to make a good chicken stock or a good red-wine sauce. Then they get upset because they haven't been recognised in the Michelin Guide. People who don't have that base knowledge will be found out in the end."

Tom Kerridge's favourite places to eat

Hind's Head, Bray, Berkshire: "The food is really first-rate. The steak with bone-marrow sauce is great and the chocolate tart is awesome. Everybody should go to the Hind's Head."

The Goose, Britwell Salome, Oxfordshire: "Michael North's food is great, it's locally sourced, he does basic things very well. His terrines are always lovely and he's a very

talented chef."

The Trouble House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire: "Michael Bedford's food is very simple, very rustic, and he has a very honest approach to food. It's a fantastic pub."

Danesfield House, Marlow, Buckinghamshire: "Aiden Byrne was Tom Aikens' head chef for two years and his cooking is very innovative. His menu includes olive oil poached rib of beef with confit garlic, parsley purée and braised onions."

Lindsay House, Soho, London: "Richard Corrigan's cooking is big on flavours, honest, gutsy and simple. I've actually turned down jobs with Richard three times simply because

they weren't right for me at the time, but I really admire him. He's a brilliant chef."

Cookbooks

White Heat - Marco Pierre White: "As a 17- year-old commis chef it was very rock and roll and the food looked dynamic for the early '90s. Marco is the greatest chef this country has ever had. One of the best meals I had was cooked by him at the Hyde Park Hotel when he had just got three stars - foie gras and chicken liver parfait with Madeira jelly and brioche; sea bass with a herb crust and a sauce mousseline; prune and Armagnac soufflé. It was the most fantastic meal."

Bouchon - Thomas Keller: "A stunning book of Keller's bistro recipes. It's more approachable than his French Laundry Cookbook, which I've also got, and contains a great French onion soup recipe."

Rhodes Around Britain - Gary Rhodes: "I worked for Gary and every recipe you needed for the menu was in that book. It was on every section in the kitchen. There wasn't a secret recipe in there - except for the bread and butter pudding, which is still the best."

Best-selling dishes in the past six months

Potted Dorset crab with brown bread, cucumber and dill chutney: "Potted crab is very British, but it's a safety dish for some people because they know what they are getting. The crab is from Dorset and it's fantastic quality. It's our biggest-selling starter."

Glazed omelette of smoked haddock and Parmesan: "We serve this in its own little blini pan so it looks quite dramatic when it's served at the table. It happened to be one of the dishes mentioned in two local magazine reviews we had and a lot of people order it because of that."

Fillet of Wiltshire grass-fed beef with Hand & Flowers chips and béarnaise sauce: "Fillet of beef will always sell. This is very good quality meat. We also work really hard to get our award-winning chips right. We go through sacks and sacks of potatoes to find the right ones. These are three times blanched - in water, oil and deep-fried again in really hot oil. The trick is finding the right potato. We use Maris Piper."