“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 computerized 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”.