Rick Stein


Christopher Richard "Rick" Stein, is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur and television presenter. Along with business partner Jill Stein he has run the Stein hotel and restaurant business in the UK for over forty years. The business has a number of renowned restaurants, shops and hotels in Padstow along with other restaurants in Marlborough, Winchester and Barnes. He is also the head chef and a co-owner of "Rick Stein at Bannisters" at Mollymook and Port Stephens in Australia, with his second wife Sarah. He has written cookery books and presented television programmes.

Early years

Of German descent, Christopher Richard Stein was born on 4 January 1947 in Churchill, Oxfordshire, to Eric and Dorothy Stein.
Stein was educated at Wells Court, a preparatory school just outside Tewkesbury, then Wells House, the Court's bigger sister-school at Malvern Wells, and then Uppingham School. He took A-levels in English, history and geography, but failed all of them. He moved to a cram school in Brighton, gaining E grades in English and history.
Stein partially completed a hotel management traineeship with British Transport Hotels at its Great Western Royal Hotel in Paddington. He worked there as a chef for six months. Distraught by his father's suicide, at age 19 he went to Australia, where he worked as a labourer in an abattoir and as a clerk in a naval dockyard. He travelled to New Zealand and Mexico around that time to "take some time out".
Being on his own, he read widely, reflected on his attitude to education, and applied successfully to New College, Oxford, where he earned an English degree in 1971. Shortly after that, he moved to Padstow.

Career

After graduating, he converted a mobile disco in Padstow, which he had run as a student, into a quayside nightclub with his friend, Johnny. It became known for its freeze-dried curries. However, the nightclub lost its licence and was closed down by the police, mainly due to frequent brawls with local fishermen. The pair still had a licence for a restaurant in another part of the building, so they continued with that to avert bankruptcy. Stein ran the kitchen using the experience he had gained as a commis chef. Eventually he converted it into a small harbour-side bistro, "The Seafood Restaurant", with his wife Jill in 1975. As of 2015, his business operates four restaurants, a bistro, a café, a seafood delicatessen, a pâtisserie shop, a gift shop and a cookery school. In 2007 threats against Stein's businesses were made by Cornish nationalists. His impact on the economy of Padstow is such that it has been nicknamed "Padstein".
In 2009 Stein made his first acquisition in the nearby village of St Merryn, 3½ miles from Padstow, taking over the Cornish Arms public house on the village's outskirts, intending to keep it as a traditional Cornish pub.
In October 2009, Stein and his fiancée, the publicist Sarah Burns, opened "Rick Stein at Bannisters" in Mollymook, Australia. Stein said at the time of opening, "Ever since a memorable weekend eating Pambula oysters and flathead in Merimbula in the sixties, I've had the image of the clean blue sea and sweet seafood of the South Coast fixed in my head so when I was introduced to Mollymook about six years ago I knew that one day I would open up a restaurant celebrating local fish and shellfish but keeping it really simple."
In 2018 Rick Stein opened up a second “Rick Stein at Bannisters” in Salamander Bay, Port Stephens with his wife Sarah Stein. Stein has become a popular television presenter on food programmes. After appearing once as guest chef in Keith Floyd's 1985 series Floyd on Fish and in his 1986 series Floyd on Food, he was offered the chance to present his own series – like the "travelogue" style of cookery show pioneered by Floyd – on BBC television, using Floyd's producer and director David Pritchard. This was to cause some rivalry, even feud, only resolved shortly before Floyd's death. His shows have included Rick Stein's Taste of the Sea, Fruits of the Sea, Seafood Odyssey, Fresh Food, Seafood Lovers' Guide, Food Heroes, French Odyssey, Mediterranean Escapes, Far Eastern Odyssey, Rick Stein's Spain and Rick Stein's India. In the last five series, he set out in search of the best in the region's foods. Until 2007, Stein was often accompanied by his Jack Russell terrier, Chalky.
Much of Stein's television work has been released on VHS tape or DVD, but the BBC have yet to release some of the early pioneering series. Since late 2018, however, much has been licensed to the Good Food cable TV channel, where it has been broadcast with some heavy editing to allow for the inclusion of adverts.
A book has accompanied each series, and his book English Seafood Cookery won the Glenfiddich Award for Food Book of the Year in 1989. Stein was awarded the OBE in the 2003 New Year Honours for services to tourism in Cornwall and the CBE in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to the economy.

Personal life

Stein met his first wife Jill Newstead in Padstow. They married in 1975 and set up their restaurant and hotel business. Stein has three sons with Jill: Edward, Jack and Charles who are involved in the family business.
He met Sarah Burns, 20 years his junior, in Australia in 1997, when she was a publicity manager for Australia Gourmet Traveller magazine. He and Sarah had a five-year affair before Jill found out and then divorced Rick in 2007, but agreed to continue to run the business together. Rick and Sarah married on 7 October 2011.
When Stein was 18 his father committed suicide by jumping off a Cornish cliff, after suffering from bipolar disorder.
Stein has a brother, John, and a sister, Henrietta. He also has a half-brother, Jeremy, his mother's son from her first marriage. He is also the uncle of DJ and music producer Judge Jules.

Charity work

Stein is Patron of the charities Padstow Youth Project, South West PESCA, the National Mission for Deep Sea Fishermen, the National Coastwatch Institution, the Dyslexia Research Trust and The National Trust.

Publications

For the restaurant:
For the man: