George Dingle, chef de cuisine, Monsieur Benjamin

It was a lot, it was intense. But we were all there because we wanted to work for him despite the crazy hours and all that kind of stuff. 

And then you moved on from there to work at The Hand and Flowers, right?

Yeah. Basically, I decided I wanted to move to America while I was at Hibiscus. I went and did a stage at Benu, and then when I came back I realised from Benu that I'd have to wait a year to get my visa so  in the meantime I went to work for Tom.

It was great, I loved it. I still love it. The restaurant is awesome, the food's awesome.It felt good coming from Hibiscus and going to work there, as opposed to when I first started at Hibiscus and I had no idea what I was doing. It was a good year.

You've been back to Europe since, you were in Germany and the UK, do you just move according to where the work takes you?

Yeah, pretty much where the work falls. When I was finishing up at Benu's I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go or what was next. A buddy of mine that I used to work with at Hibiscus was running a restaurant in Germany [Lamazère Brasserie]. 

He was like 'hey, I could do with some help, how do you feel about coming over?' and I was like 'yeah, sure let's do it.'

It was good fun, it was a small restaurant, it was just three of us cooking there, doing 60 to 80 people, simple bistro food.

I hadn't done that before so it was good experience to come from Benu and fine dining restaurants and
being in a tiny kitchen. But when Niall [Keating] rang me in December and told me he was about to go and take over at Whatley I was like 'okay.'

You seem to have cracked the Michelin inspectors' code. What's the key to getting a Michelin star?

I don't know. Interesting and tasty food and being super consistent, I guess.

Would you say that you've ever felt restricted by chasing accolades, or is that something that you've always felt matches the way you work?

 

Image: Salmon poêlée with roasted leeks, accompanied by sauce remoulade with crispy beer batter bits. Maude Ball 

I think my relationship with food is based a lot around Michelin because that's like a lot of the kitchens that I've worked in and the chefs that I've worked for. 

 

But it's definitely not everything, the restaurant I worked at in Berlin didn't have a star - although it does have a Bib Gourmand. It was busy and the food was good and I was still happy cooking like that. 

I think it  depends, I think sometimes you just need and deserve to have a Michelin star and other places maybe don't need it.

Can you tell me a little bit more about Mr. Benjamin? What kind of food do you cook?

Modern French bistro, but California produce driven. Obviously some fine dining technique, it's a Corey Lee restaurant after all. When I first moved here, when I was working at Benu, Monsieur Benjamin was always my favourite restaurant to go and eat at on a day off or for brunch.

We've got a hamburger on there, we do steak frites, we've got a coal fired Josper oven so a lot of the meat comes out of there lunch, we've got rabbit leg, a steak, a burger, we do a seafood sausage that comes out of that oven as well.

Would you have your own restaurant? 

Yeah, one day, for sure. Maybe it's a pub, giving some love back to the English food, or maybe it's something completely different, I'm not sure yet.

Are you happy in San Francisco? Is that where you'd like to stay?

At least for the next five or six years. I still feel like I've got lots to discover in the city and I love my life here. I've  got some really good friends and my girlfriend is from California so it just works right now to be here.

But who knows in the future, I love to travel and I love England so maybe one day it's back to England or maybe it's somewhere completely different. 

Image: Steak Frites, Eric Wolfinger

Is there anything to be said about the food culture and the produce there?

Yeah, being in California and being so close to Mexico as well, we have some fucking unreal produce. The one thing I do miss about England is fish, from Cornwall and parts of England. The fish was fucking awesome [in the UK].

The fish is still great here but that's one thing that I think England has got over America. And also being so close to Scotland, because shellfish from Scotland is unreal. But as far as vegetables and meat and all that kind of stuff, yeah, it's pretty good.

 

Given your resume you're likely to be a role model for young chefs. What advice would you give to someone who's starting their career in the kitchen?

I think it's as straightforward as you get out what you put in. I get asked quite a lot because I'm quite young. People ask 'how are you in this position now, how you doing that.' If your main focus is work and it's something you love and that you enjoy, you'll find your progression naturally faster I guess.

 

I think just be humble. I try and be super humble and learn what I can and take the best bits from every situation that I put myself into and then move forward with those things.

I've worked with a lot of different chefs who manage in a lot of different ways; I feel like I've managed to pick and choose what I like about each of those trusting my own opinion about how is a good way to manage people.

Just stay humble and work hard. The industry is pretty good to you in the end, if you can kind of stick it out through the early days.