Perfect roasties in sixty seconds? Learning knife skills in a minute? It might sound like the most gimmicky online cooking course going but the 60 Second Chef is a big success for a reason.
“Here’s the thing, if you were at Cordon Bleu they’d say you need to cut your carrots brunoise. But at the end of the day we’re just chopping veg – it’s a carrot cube. People make cooking sound so grandiose, when it should be something that we actually find relaxing…”
Meet Patrick Drake, the self-proclaimed 60 Second Chef and host of the “world’s fastest online cookery course”. He lives in a studio flat in East London. Here, in this bright oasis of white light, he tutors his internet audience on everything from marinading to dicing to baking St Patrick’s Guinness Cakes in super-speedy time (the latter with over 2.5 million views on YouTube).
He’s a natural teacher and on his videos, which he shoots and edits himself, the tips come thick and fast: use the blunt side of the blade to scrape the veg across the cutting board, not the sharp side that catches on the wood; cut along the membrane of the orange in order to avoid the pith; if you misplace your sharpening steel, use the bottom side of a ceramic mug instead. He shows his audience how to make the crunchiest roasties in the shortest amount of time.
What’s most refreshing is his laid-back approach. It’s a philosophy that has led him from the world of investment banking to his current lifestyle. “When I realised I wanted to work in food for the rest of my life I drew up eight points that I knew I had to do to even have a shot at the top one, I broke my dream down into manageable goals.” That list included studying cookbooks in his spare time, learning from any one willing to teach him and working in kitchens for free, all whilst holding down a day at the law firm. Evenings were spent cooking at The Cuckoo Club in Mayfair, weekends working for renowned Spanish chef Jose Pizarro. Even in his lunchtime, he’d take the lift up to the 30th floor and learn from the chefs in the fine dining restaurant of his offices – his colleagues never even knew.
After a stint at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in Bray at the age of 31, Drake took the leap, quit his day job and went in pursuit of his dream. It paid off. In 2011, he co-founded and became the head chef of the recipe box service HelloFresh and in 2013 presented his first TV show When Patrick Met Kylie: A Love ( of Food) Story, which aired in 70 countries.
Now his sights are set on “democratising cooking”. Sixty seconds to change the world? Don’t put it past him.
