About Michael Quinn MBE

Michael Quinn's background as the former head chef of the five-star Ritz Hotel in London, the first British chef in its then 74-year history to hold the top job, is enough to make anyone with an interest in things culinary stop and listen.

Yet, it is what happened to Quinn after those heady days at the Ritz that has made his name known among hospitality industry students all over Britain.

In 1980, already with one Michelin star to his name as head chef of Gravetye Manor in Sussex, the 35-year-old Quinn was headhunted by the Ritz to breathe new life into the venerable hotel's culinary reputation. And so he did - livening up the stuffy menu (including the radical move of writing the menus in English instead of French), creating a new culture in the kitchen, and generating buzz.

He turned the London Ritz restaurant into one of the city's top eateries, and his innovative cuisine and menu ideas were much copied in other establishments.

It made him a star, the "Mighty Quinn" as he was often referred to. He cooked for the Queen, was awarded an MBE, made countless television and radio appearances, and had invitations from all over the world to cook and to judge cooking events (including from New Zealand, where, in 1982, he cooked for Prime Minister Robert Muldoon at the Beehive).

This remarkable success made what followed all the more shocking.

By 1990, the Mighty Quinn, the focused, ambitious, hard-working celebrity chef, was no more.

He was just Quinn, a homeless drunk, sleeping rough under bridges or in Salvation Army hostels, mixing with criminals and doing things he never thought he would, to get another fix of his drug, alcohol.

"I had my first drink at 18 and it felt like the missing piece of the puzzle," he said during a recent visit to Christchurch.

"In the early days, alcohol helped me to handle life, but it's only a matter of time before the downside happens.

"Once I began to deteriorate, I went downhill very quickly. But my pride and ego kept me from asking for help."

Quinn's story is that of many alcoholics - of a gradual descent into dependence, denying all the while that he had a problem, while his marriages, relationships with his children, his work and the life he had built for himself disappeared.

But the high-profile heights from which he fell, and the depths of misery that almost killed him, make the story that much more compelling. That, and the fact that he is now sober, reunited with his sons, and determined to do his best to prevent other chefs falling down the same dark hole.

In 2001, five years after a moment of personal truth when, while being given the last rites, he had embraced sobriety and, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, begun the long, hard road to recovery, he established the Ark Foundation, a charity to take an awareness seminar on alcohol and drugs to Britain's catering colleges.

The first meeting for the foundation was held in the kitchen of London's Savoy Hotel, where an old friend was head chef. Today, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is an honorary vice-chairman.

"I saw the Ark as an educational tool to take the message of alcohol and drug awareness into (catering) colleges," Quinn says. "Our motto is `In service of others'. It was not about egos, not about people using the Ark to promote themselves."

While Quinn believes his own descent into alcoholism would likely have happened no matter his profession, his focus is on the hospitality industry.

He came up through the kitchen ranks at a time when drinking during service was perfectly acceptable, sometimes with a daily beer allowance for each chef, or even a barrel of beer in the cool room.

"When it was empty, we just got another." Times have changed, but he says the nature of the industry could exacerbate a tendency towards problems with alcohol.

"In the hospitality industry, you are surrounded by alcohol all the time," says Quinn. "There is the social aspect to it - the winding down after a service, working irregular hours, working under high pressure - and the culture of drinking is enormous in the UK, with an explosion of binge drinking and of young women drinking."

A 2002 comparison of alcohol consumption in 50 countries listed the UK at No. 9, with an average per capita consumption of 9.6 litres, an increase of 80 per cent since 1970. New Zealand ranked 24th, with a consumption of 6.9 litres, down 9.3%.

In the Ark's first year, Quinn told his story to students at 13 colleges. Last year, the foundation, part of Britain's Hospitality Action group and funded by the hospitality industry, ran seminars at 300 colleges, in front of 20,000 students.

"It might be that, through its seminars, the Ark Foundation can just plant a seed," he says, "so that years later someone who heard me speak will think `that short, fat bastard was right' and get some help."

It has become almost a full-time occupation for Quinn, who says he does little cooking these days, although he did spend several years back at the stoves in a low-profile way once he was sober.

While in Christchurch, en route to see friends in Australia, he ran an impromptu seminar for a small group at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, and he wonders if the Ark Foundation might not be useful in New Zealand.

Tracy Berno, the head of CPIT's School of Food and Hospitality, attended the seminar, and said the polytechnic was discussing with Quinn whether the Ark model might be suitable to incorporate into one of their programmes. "It could be interesting and helpful for students anything that helps promote responsible behaviour in the industry is a good thing," she says.

"(Quinn) was one of the early celebrity chefs and the fact that he was so well known has quite a bit to add in terms of the impact."

Ideally, Quinn says, if seminars were to run here, they would be led by a New Zealander, but he concedes that his own story, as a potent and fascinating illustration of the potential downside of alcohol, and of the hope and help available, would be a tough one to match.

"I look back at that time now and it is like looking at a different person. I'm the real Michael Quinn now."

Article courtesy of www.aa-uk.org.uk



Has anyone heard of Michael Quinn MBE?

When I was Editor of Caterer & Hotelkeeper in the late 1990s, it was a publication that people referred to as the "Bible of its industry". This had little to do with me - at the time there simply wasn?t anything to rival the magazine in British hospitality. With a weekly readership of 250,000, its position as the main channel of communication in hotels, restaurants and among contract caterers was second to none.

This was in the days before email, and the Editor used to receive up to 100 letters a day. Most routine correspondence was handled by my PA or other members of staff, but I always responded to personal letters myself. One day, a letter arrived from a Michael Quinn. Something about it caught my eye, I?m not sure what. I read it carefully and then walked out onto the editorial floor and asked: "Has anyone ever heard of Michael Quinn MBE?" There was silence. Someone muttered something about "famous chef, long time ago".

I checked out the name, made sure that the letter wasn't a fake, and arranged to meet Michael in a hotel near Northampton. Over lunch, he told me his story. I was intrigued. My nose for good editorial copy was twitching. But it was more than that. As he described his descent into the nightmare world of the alcoholic and about his slow but successful recovery and how he now wanted to do something to assist fellow alcoholics, I felt compelled to help.

Two months later we ran a leader column in the magazine about the Ark Foundation, accompanied by a six-page article and interview with Michael. The rest, as they say, is history. The hospitality industry responded, the Ark was launched, support gathered momentum and the work commenced.

I've never pretended that it was this article in Caterer that was responsible for the Ark's success. It would have happened anyway, such was Michael's commitment and faith in the project. But if the magazine helped, then I'm pleased.

As a personal footnote, my subsequent friendship with Michael kick-started an interest in charity work that led, five years later, to a new career with The Children's Society (www.childrenssociety.org.uk). It's no coincidence that I should find myself involved in an organisation where much of the work helps young people with drink or drug problems or whose parents suffer from substance misuse. Michael Quinn's influence is more far reaching than he thinks!

Forbes Mutch
Senior Communications Editor, The Children's Society
Editor Caterer & Hotelkeeper (1997 - 2005)