A life spent behind the pass, from County Durham to Michelin stars
From a council house in Seaham to some of the most demanding kitchens in Britain and beyond, Ian McAndrew has spent more than five decades in chef whites. Just Call Me Chef is his unvarnished account of what really happens on the other side of the kitchen door: the heat, the discipline, the disasters, the brilliance and the sheer bloody hard work.
This is not a celebrity cookbook. It is the story of a working chef who refused to quit.
As a schoolboy in County Durham, Ian McAndrew only took cookery to avoid metalwork. By the time he hung up his apron professionally, he had helped shape modern British cooking, earned a Michelin star, mentored some of the country’s best known chefs and run a nationally acclaimed country house hotel.
In Just Call Me Chef, Ian looks back over more than fifty years in kitchens, hotels and dining rooms. From his early days in British Transport Hotels to the pressure of London service, from opening Restaurant 74 and gaining a Michelin star to years cheffing in Germany and later building a life in Scotland at Blackaddie, he tells the story with the same qualities that shaped his food: honesty, precision and no unnecessary garnish.
Along the way he writes about family, friendship, failure, adoption, the chaos of Christmas services, the quiet moments after last orders and the strange decision to write cookbooks that would go on to become kitchen bibles.
It is, in the end, a love letter to a trade that is anything but glamorous up close.
Just Call Me Chef takes you through:
Working class beginnings
Growing up in County Durham, stumbling into domestic science, and walking into his first real kitchen with more attitude than experience.
The education of a chef
British Transport Hotels, classical training, terrifying head chefs, impossible standards and the slow realisation that he might actually be good at this.
London and Michelin pressure
Ambitious restaurants, unforgiving critics, and the daily tightrope of running a kitchen where perfection is the baseline, not the goal.
Opening his own places
The exhilaration and sheer risk of running Restaurant 74 and other ventures, juggling staff, customers, money and his own sanity.
Germany, Scotland and starting again
Moving abroad, adapting to new cultures and ingredients, then later taking on Blackaddie and turning a tired hotel into a serious food destination.
Life beyond service
Marriages, friendships, the decision to adopt his son, Connor, much later in life, and the question of who you are when you finally step away from the stove.
Told with candour and dry humour, it is full of sharp detail: the burns, the rows, the bad ideas, the perfect plates and the tiny, hard-won victories that keep a chef going.
Chefs, cooks and hospitality folk
If you have ever stood on a pass, worked a double or cried in a walk-in fridge, this will feel painfully familiar.
Food lovers and restaurant regulars
For anyone who has followed the rise of British food, Michelin stars and destination dining rooms, this is the backstory you rarely hear.
Readers of memoir and biography
A real life, told straight. No ghost writer, no gloss, just a working chef trying to make sense of the journey.
Fans of Ian’s cookbooks
If A Feast of Fish, Poultry & Game or any of his recipes have made it into your kitchen, this is the story behind the dishes.
