BBC star reveals shock plans to leave TV as he reveals major career move

Scottish Sun

6 days ago

CELEBRITY chef Nick Nairn revealed he's swapped pans for pots — to plant and grow his own produce.
The famous cook, who spent 30 years in showbiz, said he doesn't miss a TV career.
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Nick Nairn is focusing on his gardening.
Credit: Andrew Barr
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He's taken a step back from TV work.
Credit: Andrew Barr
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The cook school has been training chefs for 25 years.
Credit: Andrew Barr
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The TV star teaches two classes a week.
Credit: Andrew Barr
And he admitted: 'If I never stood in front of a camera again, it wouldn't bother me.'
Nick, who found fame on Ready, Steady Cook and Wild Harvest in the mid-90s, suffered a bitter blow when his Nairn's restaurant in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, closed last year.
But as part of his lifestyle overhaul, he is now reinvesting in his famous cook school and ploughing his efforts into cultivating his own ingredients.
Nick — who co-hosted The Great Food Guys with Dougie Vipond for four series until 2021 and often guested on pal James Martin's shows, including STV's Saturday Morning — says: 'When I was younger, I was ambitious. I liked the money.
'I liked the fame. I liked the whole lifestyle thing. But my whole philosophy has changed. I've been there and done it and honestly, if I never stood in front of a camera again, it wouldn't bother me.
'Because there's a huge amount of time travelling and hanging about with television. Don't get me wrong, I was very lucky.
'Filming's taken me all over the world to Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada, and I've enjoyed it immensely, but I'm 66 now. I'm an old age pensioner.
'So now I do three days a week in my garden and two classes a week in my cook school and I absolutely love it.'
Former merchant seaman Nick, from Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, couldn't even boil an egg until he was 24. But he taught himself to cook on a four-ring electric stove before going into the hospitality trade in 1986. He earned his first coveted Michelin star in 1991, at the age of 31, making him the youngest Scots chef to be awarded the culinary accolade at the time.
In 2000, he opened the Nick Nairn Cook School by the Lake of Menteith, which boomed when financial institutions started using it for team-building exercises.
But his first major crisis struck with the credit crunch in 2008, as panic in the banking markets swept the globe.
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He recalls: 'We're fully booked for six months ahead, and the next minute the phone was going every five seconds with companies cancelling their bookings.'
Unperturbed, Nick decided to branch out and open a second cook school in Aberdeen in 2012. He ploughed hundreds of thousands of pounds into the venture, later opening Nick's Pizza Bar in the Granite City, too. He says: 'Aberdeen was still very buoyant as oil and gas was doing really well.
'But opening the cook school was a lot of hard work and business was slow to start with.
'Then it really took off in 2013 and we had two amazing years where we were packed out seven days a week.
'Of course, in 2015 we had the oil price crash. Oil went from $110 to $28 a barrel overnight, and our businesses came to a shuddering halt.' But worse followed in 2017, when Nick was injured in a street attack by oil worker Scott Smith.
Thug Smith was later fined £900 after admitting the assault, which left Nick with two black eyes and a bloody nose.
He says: 'As well as getting assaulted by some drunk in the street, I then tripped in a hotel and broke my ankle and finger.'
The chef decided to make a real go of the restaurant business, opening Nick's in Bridge of Allan in February 2020 — a month before Covid saw the entire world grind to a halt. Then, in August 2021, a faulty fryer caused a huge blaze in the packed restaurant, gutting the premises.
Incredibly, no one was hurt. Nick, who lives with his third wife Julia, explains: 'One of the chefs screamed, 'Get out'.
'I think everybody thought it was a terrorist attack, so they jumped up and left their phones and coats.
'I was cooking in Port of Menteith so my wife headed off to Bridge of Allan. She could see a big plume of smoke from miles away — that was literally our business going up in smoke.' After a full refurbishment, Nick's reopened as Nairn's in July 2023.
The whole sorry saga ended last year amid an alleged 'bitter row' with the restaurant's landlord.
Amid the upheaval, Nick's Port of Menteith cook school had also flooded in 2021. So it's little wonder the chef is enjoying a quieter life.
He is focusing on his beloved first cook school, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Nick, who also runs The Kailyard in Hilton's Dunblane Hydro, says: 'Everything has come full circle. I'd almost become a full-time telly chef and my work took me away from home a lot of the time.
'But Lake of Menteith is kind of like paradise. I have a big polytunnel covering 100 square metres and I have my raised beds outside and just love growing my own produce.
'We cook everything from scratch. I love it. TV got in the way of this before, but it won't again.'
For more information on Nick Nairn's Cook School or restaurant, visit nairns.co.uk.