Plate to plate - a chef's story | Alun D Pughe

Short film about Michelin Star chef Peter Gast shot on Canon C200 for the Canon Pro Network Dir: Alun D Pughe Agency: Future Fusion Production Company: I Am Bob If TV has taught us anything, it’s that chefs have knife-edge tempers. It sometimes seems that’s the only way to run a high-end restaurant. But Michelin-starred Dutch chef Peter Gast would beg to differ. “I grew up in the countryside, I used to work in the fields,” says Gast. “My parents had careers, so I was doing all of the cooking.” But it was a computerised career test at school that set him on his culinary path. As a young man, he headed to London to do his training, but it proved a culture shock. “The way people communicated with each other, it wasn’t really a team effort,” he recalls. “Everybody was shouting, throwing things. I was so stressed out that I cooked a lobster in a microwave!” Gast describes his time working under the domineering chef as “the worst time in my life”. But the experience propelled Peter in a different, more harmonious direction. Returning to the Netherlands, he set up his own restaurant, t’Schulten Hues in Zutphen which, at the centre of its menu, features herbs and flowers cultivated and harvested by Gast. In under two years he was awarded his first Michelin star, aged only 25.