With two Michelin stars under his belt, chef Michael Caines is building up a chain of hotels and restaurants around the country with his business partner. Tina Nielsen finds out what's cooking

Michael Caines is determined to leave a legacy. It may seem a bit
premature for a man who has yet to hit 40, but Caines isn't one to hang about. After a meteoric rise to the top, the Michelin-starred chef has added restaurateur and hotelier to his business card and followed in the footsteps of Gordon Ramsay and Alain Ducasse by turning his trade into his business.
With three hotels, each with a signature restaurant, already under his belt, he has made the transition from chef to businessman look remarkably simple. "It is quite evident that I have a unique set of skills, which combine to serve me well, but I have had my challenges and it hasn't always been easy," he says.

Putting his name to multiple outlets means that Caines faces the challenge of managing his growing reputation. "You have to ensure that everything you do is reinforcing the quality and the values you want to stand for," says Graham Hales, chief communications officer at specialist agency Interbrand. "When we see Gordon Ramsay on TV, we see this obsessed nutcase who is constantly reinforcing quality control in an aggressive way. So we believe that everything in his restaurants is going to be perfect because the same standards are reinforced in his kitchen."

But mutterings that Ramsay is spreading himself too thin with new ventures at home and overseas alongside an aggressive commercial and media profile won't go away. Does overexposure concern the confident Caines?

"Obviously you do worry about it," he says. "There is only one of me, but equally there is only one of Paul Smith and he is represented all over the world."

Having demonstrated a talent for cooking at Exeter Catering College, Caines spent his formative years with Raymond Blanc at his Oxfordshire restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, where he was quick to
impress. "He was immediately ready to embrace every new idea that was put in front of him and he was thirsty for knowledge," says Blanc. "He was a great personality and a great team leader from very early on; first as a chef de partie and later as a sous-chef, running the whole kitchen team."

Caines went to France for three years where he worked with superstar chefs Joel Robuchon and the late Bernard Loiseau. When he returned to Britain in 1994 it was to take up the position of head chef at Gidleigh Park, on Dartmoor—a huge challenge for the then 25-year-old. Gidleigh Park, considered one of the finest restaurants in the country, already boasted one Michelin star.

Only two months into his job at Gidleigh, disaster struck. Caines had a horrific car accident, which saw him losing his right arm after he fell asleep at the wheel. But he was back in the kitchen part-time after two weeks and full-time after four. He says he didn't have a choice but to get on with it: "I didn't have a big insurance payment that allowed me to take a year off and it really was my survival instinct that kicked in," he says. "What my accident did was focus my mind."

For a young ambitious chef who thrived on the punishing schedule, this new reality came as a shock. "I realised that I couldn't continue to cook 18 hours a day, seven days a week, because it was going to become physically impossible," he says. Perhaps this was the time when the seeds of his business ambitions were first sown. In the years that followed, despite his disability, Caines picked up numerous awards and guidebook gongs, culminating with the award of his second Michelin star in 1999.
But he wanted more. "I could see there was no long-term stability for me as a two-Michelin-starred chef and there was never going to be enough in my salary to buy Gidleigh," he says. So in 2000 he established Michael Caines Restaurants and signed a 10-year deal with the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter to run its food and beverage outlets by putting in a fine dining restaurant and a champagne bar at the heart of the hotel, while also running its café-bar and pub.

He continued as head chef at Gidleigh Park while looking after his new project. "It was really difficult," he says. "We had a tough first year. Even though we increased the business, taking it from £900,000 to £1.7m, we still lost money."

He survived long enough to have a chance meeting with his eventual business partner, multimillionaire Andrew Brownsword, who came in for lunch while taking his daughter back to university in Exeter and left with a copy of Caines's newsletter, where he saw the chef was looking for an investor. Brownsword called him three days later with an offer and soon they started scouting for suitable buildings around the country.

Brownsword amassed his fortune in greeting cards with Andrew Brownsword Group, which he sold to Hallmark in 1994. He also owns the sports retailer Snow & Rock, has a 97 per cent stake in Bath Rugby Club and, in addition to the three ABode hotels, owns Sydney House in London's Chelsea Harbour and the Bath Priory.

Once Caines and Brownsword got started, there was no stopping them. They began establishing their ABode group by transforming the Royal Clarence into ABode Hotel Exeter in 2005. Next came the acquisition of a Glasgow property; and ABode Canterbury opened in September 2006. Manchester will open in April and a fifth ABode in Chester is scheduled for next year. They aim to open one hotel a year over the coming decade. Caines takes full charge of the MC branded food and beverage outlets—including restaurants, pubs, café bars and taverns—while Brownsword gets involved with the design of the hotels. Their ambition for the fine dining restaurants is that they become destinations in their local communities, as well as serving hotel guests.

In 2005, Brownsword and his wife also bought Gidleigh Park. "It was always part of the strategy that they would go on to buy Gidleigh," says Caines. "This allows us to train and develop staff for ABode in a two-Michelin-star kitchen." All the executive chefs in the ABode kitchens have spent time with him there. "We can't emulate Gidleigh Park 10 times, but we can make sure that the quality and skill we have there affect our businesses in the rest of the country," he says.

It is a big ask to attempt such high standards while insisting on rolling out multiple outlets at breakneck speed. How does Caines feel about this? "I was prepared for it and I am excited by it," he says. "I realised that investors see an opportunity to repeat success and we always knew that we would grow quickly because of Andrew's wealth, which permitted us to purchase hotels very quickly."

Jay Rayner, restaurant critic of the Observer, says getting the right people will determine Caines' success. "Gordon Ramsay was able to expand because he had seriously talented people, like Angela Hartnett and Marcus Wareing, from his time at Aubergine, and the problem for Caines might come down to the number of employees who have been with him long enough at Gidleigh to cook away," he says.

Caines concedes it is hard to get staff, but he is clearly very proud of the work he does with the chefs who pass through the kitchen at Gidleigh before they are released into ABode kitchens. "I have to ensure that we inspire our executive chefs and teams to put their individual stamp and creativity on the menu—I am there to nurture and make sure we are running the business in a creative but profitable way," he says. The young chefs have a database of all the recipes Caines has notched up in his 13 years as a head chef and they are expected to build up relations with local farmers and producers to ensure that they always have quality ingredients.

In 2002 Rayner picked out Caines in a feature on the chefs of the future, but his first experience of Michael Caines Restaurant in ABode Canterbury was disappointing and his review scathing. "I picked Caines in my article because he is one of the leading figures in his field, but I didn't have a nice lunch," he says. "The restaurant had all the bells and whistles but none of the delivery; the food wasn't very good, the service was shoddy, there was sauce spilt up the menus and the staff didn't seem to give a damn. When you are charging the sort of money he is, it cannot seem like any other thing than opportunism."

Perfectionist Caines clearly feels aggrieved by this one bad review—his restaurants have received nothing but praise—and just mentioning it sets him off.

"Jay Rayner showed up within the first month of opening and we had a difficult opening; it was a tough one. Why is it that people are intent on writing off someone's business in the first four weeks of opening, based on someone's pen?" he asks. "By opening a business I open myself up to criticism and I don't have a problem with that, but I am developing and sometimes you stretch yourself." He says he is trying to provide good affordable restaurants to local communities. "We open local restaurants to local people at local prices. We use local produce—that is at the heart of what we do—and we try to give people value for money. That at least has got to be respected. It is about lifestyle choices. Do people really want to continue eating in boring chains with no personality and vision?" he asks.
What does annoy him, he says, is that chefs are criticised for expanding. "Why can't people take chefs seriously?" he asks. "I think it is really poor that you can be a chief executive and sit on the board of five or six companies, yet a chef can't develop multiple outlets. I'd rather people just accepted that food is a business and we are in the business to make money from it."

But serial restaurateur Trevor Gulliver, who counts Fergus Henderson's St John restaurant in London among his many business interests, says lending your name to multiple restaurants can be a risk. "Once a chef's name has been stuck on the door of a restaurant where he doesn't cook, there is obviously a risk," he says. But he adds that Brownsword's wealth buys Caines the luxury of time to get his restaurants right.

Caines doesn't refer to himself as a celebrity chef, but with a book due out next year and an increasing television profile, he is well aware of the potential and clearly knows he should be making money from his passion. And while lauding Delia Smith, Rick Stein and Jamie Oliver, Caines questions other celebrity foodies' credentials.

"What does Loyd Grossman have that gives him authority in making sauces other than the fact he thinks they taste all right?" he asks. "He sells loads of sauces, making millions every year off this reputation as the guy who fronted Masterchef, but he is in no better position to tell you what to eat than a chef. He didn't cook that sauce. He just sat there and tasted it and said 'I like that one' and put a label on it."

Caines says he is keen to follow up his stints on Saturday Kitchen and Great British Menu with more television work, but he is sensitive to the risk of overexposure. "I am open to offers, but I don't want to become a media tart," he says.

The legacy Caines so desires wouldn't be complete without the media profile and he is chasing an elusive third Michelin star. "The third star is clearly something I desperately want to have. I started out in three-Michelin-star kitchens, so that is an aspiration for me," he says. But the aspiration goes beyond that.

"When I look back at my career, two Michelin stars and all the personal glory are great, but what I have created with Michael Caines restaurants and ABode is something that will outlive me," he says. It is clear that we have not seen the last of Michael Caines—at least, not if he has his way.