The Michelin-starred celebrity chef Jason Atherton Photo: Cai Xianmin/GT

Although he regularly demonstrates on BBC cooking shows, publishes popular cookbooks, and constantly appears in newspapers and magazines, Jason Atherton's biggest career highlight might be the Michelin star awarded to his flagship London restaurant, Pollen Street Social.

After a stint at the legendary Spanish restaurant elBulli in 1998, Atherton worked with many big-name chefs and has a string of accolades under his belt. With two restaurants in Shanghai, the Commune Social and Table No.1 at the Waterhouse, the boutique designer hotel at the Cool Docks, Atherton was back in town last week for the third anniversary of the opening of the hotel. He talked to the Global Times about his life and career. 

GT: To be a Michelin-starred chef, what kind of qualities does a chef need to have?

JA: We don't run restaurants to win Michelin stars. We run restaurants because we are passionate about what we do. This is about quality; whatever style and cuisine you do, you have standards inside yourselves. That's what Michelin stands for. Michelin is something that should come if you are good at your job. For me it doesn't matter whether my restaurant has a Michelin star or not, the standards are exactly the same: making sure the kitchen is absolutely spotless, the plates are clean and tidy, the food is super fresh, and the preparation is done correctly.

GT: If you were a food critic, what are your criteria to judge whether a restaurant is good?

JA: It's the quality of the food. I'm looking for flavor, texture, well-balanced dishes, and lastly, presentation. Flavor is the simple, most important thing. It's like creating a piece of art, for example, music. If you've got bad instruments, you are not able to create good music. It's the same for food. So the first thing is good ingredients. And then you cook them, you enhance the flavor.

GT: Do you feel the pressure to keep and maintain the Michelin star every year?

JA: I used to really stress about it. I used to worry about how to get better and achieve more stars. But now I don't want it to be a big headache. I know my food is Michelin quality. It is what it is. If we get more stars, great. If I lose stars, the only person to blame is myself. I just cook my food and what will be, will be.

GT: When did you find yourself interested in the culinary arts?

JA: When I was 16, I was working at a really bad hotel in a small seaside town in the UK, making very simple food. I went to a bookstore and bought a book called Dining in France, by Gault & Millau. I saw the famous dish for the first time, "chicken in mourning," where the whole skin of a poached chicken is covered with sliced truffle. Wow, it was amazing. I couldn't believe it as I was living in that tiny little town which I barely left. This is how I want to learn to cook. So I left home at 16 and went to live in London, working in a Michelin-starred restaurant before I went on to learn cooking in France and Spain.

GT: Having worked with many big-name chefs, who do you think was the most helpful to you?

JA: I think Ferran Adrià [the head chef at elBulli] helped free me from my constraints. He gave me the confidence to be creative, not just hold on to my French roots. Before I met him my training had been three-star Michelin restaurants in or outside France, cooking pure French cuisine. You were shackled. You were just given a protein, a garnish, a sauce. elBulli is completely different. It's nothing like that. To have that freedom is life changing. And Gordon Ramsay, we worked together for 10 years and spent happy times together. We ran very successful restaurants, and he helped me from just being a chef into being a restaurateur. I wouldn't have achieved what I have today if I hadn't spent 10 years in his restaurant company.

GT: There are no Michelin-starred restaurants on the Chinese mainland. Why do you think that is?

JA: The reason is there's no Michelin Guidebook here. I found there are many fantastic local restaurants and many young talented chefs working here. I went to a dim sum restaurant at Shangri-La, and that, to me, is Michelin-quality food. I'm pretty sure when Michelin do come here, the restaurants will get Michelin stars.

GT: In Shanghai, are you sticking to your own style, or do you make some localized changes?

JA: We localize a lot and it's exciting. Every city we go in, we will try to find out what people are looking for, what's trendy at the moment and how should we enhance that. We don't want to ever come to a city and think ourselves to be the "best." We are not here to be the "best," but to cook the food. Chefs in my restaurant go to Chinese wet markets to find Chinese ingredients, Chinese vegetables, for instance, we try it and if it fits our way, we will add it into our menu.

A recipe shared by the chef

Razor clams, chorizo, coriander and chili

Ingredients for four portions: 1 kilogram razor clams, 10 grams red chili chopped, 10 grams coriander picked and chopped, 10 grams confit shallot (chopped garlic slowly cooked in olive oil until tender), 10 grams chopped garlic, 15 grams diced chorizo, two lemons, juice and wedge for garnish

Method:

Take clams out of shell carefully. Keep and wash shells, boil in salted water and refresh. Make sure they are clean of any impurities.

Prepare the clams by removing any of the insides of the clams and wash away any sand with cold water.

Warm shells in oven, quickly pan fry them in a very hot pan, adding salt (to taste), chorizo, confit shallots, red chili, garlic, quickly fry 20 seconds.

Add chopped coriander and a little lemon juice. Place clams back into shells, garnish with picked coriander and lemon wedge.