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Daily Mail
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
From scrums to saucepans! Former Bath and Northampton prop Nick Auterac opens up on leaving rugby behind and his new career as a chef
For 12 years, brute force was Nick Auterac's currency as he propped up the scrum for some of the Gallagher Premiership's best sides. Finesse wasn't really a part of his job description in professional rugby. Now, as he stands in the kitchen of a chic French brasserie in the affluent London suburb of West Hampstead and fillets steak for the evening service, there is suddenly a need for delicacy. Auterac's new career couldn't be more different from what he had become used too. After leaving rugby behind, he has slimmed down and embarked on a new life as a chef. Some old habits, however, die hard. 'I do still knock into things quite a lot and I can be a bit heavy handed sometimes too,' says Auterac, decked out in chef's whites and apron instead of training gear. 'I've lost about 25 kilos. You do so many steps in the kitchen and you're so busy, you don't actually end up eating that much.' In a parallel universe, Auterac – still only 32 – would have been part of the Bath side which won the Premiership title at Twickenham last weekend as part of an historic treble. He made close to 100 appearances for The Rec outfit and also played for Saracens, where he started his career, as well as Harlequins and Northampton. Auterac's time in rugby came to an end in Edinburgh in 2023. 'I was just f****** done,' he says. Auterac seems well suited to life as a chef as expletives regularly punctuate this interview. He adds: 'The coaches and the players knew that. Everyone in the f****** city of Edinburgh knew that. I started a Masters in music production thinking it would kick me on and I'd be the next f****** David Guetta!' Auterac graduated with first-class honours. But he didn't find the music industry to be as he envisaged, so then came another dramatic pivot. The former loosehead met chef Louis Bird, who is an ex-school contemporary, in a London gym and soon embarked on a fresh chapter. Auterac has always been a passionate foody. But he had 'zero training' in what is required to work as a chef full time before doing just that. 'You'd struggle to find a prop who doesn't like food. I love food. I always just naturally cooked a lot,' Auterac adds. 'There was a point where I was eating a steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner – every day. That's why I'm quite good at cooking steaks here! 'I've always loved cooking for friends and family. I think it's such a rewarding thing when you give them some food and they're complimentary There is pressure. If I f*** up at home, I'd say: 'Sorry, I f***** up.' But, here, you can't do that and you see the best and the worst of people because of that. 'I'd be lying if I said the kitchen buzz was at the same level as rugby, but there's definitely an element to it. There's nothing like playing in front of 15,000 people at Franklin's Gardens knowing you're going to get your head kicked in for 90 minutes!' Alongside Bird, Auterac is now a chef at French Society and loving his post-rugby life. He has also recently become engaged to fiancée Viviana. 'It's proper French bistro food here. It's fun to cook and f*** it's tasty,' he says. 'But it's not very good for you. If you're on a diet, don't eat it. 'There's literally butter, cream and sugar in f****** everything. We do massive sirloin steaks with bone marrow butter. The duck confit, slowly cooked in oil, is lovely and tender. 'We put it on the charcoal right at the end to crisp it up. I do around 30,000 steps a day in the kitchen. I'm probably one of the only chefs who goes home and stretches. 'I'll get the p*** taken out of me for that!' Not all rugby players exit the game and find a new job they're happy with. Auterac has and is certainly fortunate to be in that position. His passion for cooking is clear, helped by it running in the family. Auterac's sister Georgina is a private chef and until recently, was working for former Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou. But his rugby departure was, unfortunately, now typical for a game which has had to cut back amid severe financial challenges. Premiership clubs have had to reduce their squad sizes, leaving players out of work. Auterac had a fine career and was a solid, dependable front-row forward. But he wasn't a top international nor a young academy player, falling between those two stools. In Auterac's own words, rugby's middle ground has been 'squeezed.' It is something happening not only in England, but worldwide. 'There are those in the middle – which is where I put myself – who are not earning top or bottom money. I succumbed to the business side of it all,' Auterac adds. 'The clubs had to make a business decision: Do we get rid of Nick and get someone who is half the price or does Nick play better? Obviously, I didn't play better. Then they got Joe Bloggs for half the money.' Auterac harbours no ill feeling to the game which gave him more than a decade of playing at the highest level. But at the same time, he has now left rugby behind and is content to have done so. Auterac's longest playing stint at one club came with Bath. But with job security scarce, he had grown tired of bouncing between teams. He was always on the move. The brutal realities of what it takes to play the game today and the physical impact it has on a player's body also became a factor as Auterac got older and the contract offers lessened. 'My back was so sore. I was lying in bed every night on diazepam, painkillers and muscle relaxers,' he says. 'I was taking them just to get to sleep at one point and that made me think, 'What the f*** am I doing?' 'When you're young, you're happy to kick your body in and keep going. But I got to a stage where I thought doing that was just f****** stupid. 'I have no regrets because I f****** put everything into it. The frustrating thing is that I succumbed to the business side of it all. I could maybe have dragged out another few years, but there were other things I wanted to do with my life. 'I thought I'd pack it in and I did so on my terms. I'm not going to lie, my back was pretty f***** by the end.' Auterac won't ever return to the rugby field. He is very clear about that. The long evening and weekend shifts which come with life as a chef are a big part of that. But he does still retain some involvement in the game, coaching at London side Old Millhillians for whom Bird – Auterac's boss – still plays. 'It is an interesting dynamic. If Louis f**** me off here, I'll just go and make his life miserable playing rugby,' Auterac says with a smile. 'But I'm so grateful to him for giving me this opportunity. Last year, the coach who started the season had a heart attack. I spoke to Louis and he said no-one was coaching them. 'I couldn't have that. I said I'd help out and then we lost every game! The closest we came to winning was about 30 or 40 points. We had a dreadful season and they still wanted me to come back! I couldn't believe it. 'In my first game, we lost by 70 points. A lot of them went like that. You can put this in the article – if anyone wants to play for Old Millhillians, let me know!' Auterac would have loved to have played in France, a country with which he has a great affinity. It is no surprise French cuisine is now his preferred culinary choice. 'There's actually a place in the south of France called Auteyrac,' he says, before breaking into another big grin. 'It's a tiny little village. My parents went to visit not long ago. They said it stank of cow s*** and they'd never go back!' Auterac remains close with Bath and England lock Charlie Ewels. He emphasises his fondness for Northampton. His weight loss can in part be attributed to his training for an upcoming half Ironman challenge. Auterac played for Bath in their 2015 Premiership final defeat by Saracens. If things had worked out differently, he could have been a treble winner alongside friend Ewels this season. But that is not the way Auterac looks at things. He is happy with his lot. That much is clear during 45 minutes of engaging conversation. It is not often an interview with a former rugby player gets interrupted for a fresh bread delivery. But this was one. 'I'd do this for free,' Auterac says. 'I cook because I love it. I played rugby because I loved it. They're what I call passion jobs. I loved Northampton. It's a proper rugby town. I liked Bath. It was a weird time under Mike Ford. 'There was always a little bit of pressure lingering around. When we had a bad season, the instability would return which made it not a nice place to be. 'But the city was really nice. I'm glad now they're winning things. It's about time. I had good friends there and just for the peace of the place, I wanted them to win something. But even now with mad Bruce Craig involved, they're only half a season away from it all being overturned again.' On that note, and with time ticking towards opening hour at the restaurant, Auterac has to go. After leaving life on the rugby field behind, he has found a new calling. It seems it is one which perhaps makes him even happier than his sport ever did.
Telegraph
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Nick Auterac quit rugby... to become a chef
After 12 years spent at the metaphorical coal face of a front row in professional rugby, Nick Auterac decided that time had come for him to experience a literal one. Between 2011 and 2023, the former loosehead led a nomadic rugby life, representing four Premiership clubs – Saracens, Bath, Harlequins, Northampton – as well as two in the Championship – London Scottish and Bedford – and one north of the border in the form of Edinburgh. But now, Auterac has returned to where it all began, in north London, swapping the training kit for chef whites in a move from one cut-throat milieu to another. And it is at the trendy, candle-lit bistro, French Society in West Hampstead, where the 34-year-old now plies his trade. The most blindingly obvious question is how on earth did a well-known former prop end up as the chef at this charming spot in West Hampstead, behind the lace curtains and knocking out modernised French classics? The story, much like Auterac's career to date, is not exactly conventional. 'When I finished at Edinburgh, I was very done with rugby,' Auterac tells Telegraph Sport. 'The last half of the year there, I was a bit... I don't want to say miserable as that sounds a bit depressing but I was just... f---ing done. I think the coaches knew that, I think the players knew that – everyone in the f---ing city of Edinburgh knew that. I became a bit of a nuisance around training – stuff like that – which was so against what I had done for the past 11-and-a-half years. 'Once I'd decided I'd finished, I wanted to do something new. I started a masters in music production. I'd always been into music and I always knew that that was what I wanted to go into. I started that thinking it would kick me on and I'd be the next f---ing David Guetta or whatever. I did that for a year and as I was doing it...' An unassuming man with a sack of baguettes interrupts the 32-year-old mid-flow. It is the day's bread delivery which brings a smile to Auterac's face. It is palpable that he adores this profession. This will not be the first time that our conversation is interrupted as, soon after, another man peers around the wooden door to ask if the restaurant is now fully open and whether he could book a table – the answer is that it opened on May 22 – and then later, Auterac's sous chef, Lucien, arrives. There is a lot going on in the world of Auterac. He lives in Kentish Town with his fiancé, Viviana, with the couple in the midst of wedding planning. This month, Auterac will also complete a gruelling half-iron man, which explains how he came to lose 25 kilograms since his playing retirement. The patrons in West Hampstead would be forgiven for not knowing that their chef used to be a loosehead prop. The transition from passionate home cook to professional chef adds another recent gust to the whirlwind. Fittingly for Auterac, who could have been mistaken for a bodybuilder in his playing days, his cheffing journey began in the gym. He met Louis – the chef of Patron in Kentish Town as well as another bar and café – who was also an alumnus of Auterac's alma mater, Mill Hill School. The friendship was born and when Auterac came to the realisation that he, in fact, would never be the next David Guetta, with cheffing in the family – his sister, Georgina, and her husband, Stu, who is Auterac's culinary idol, are both chefs – he approached Louis about formal training. Auterac started in Patron in January before moving to French Society at its opening last month. 'There was a period of about three weeks when I knew I was going to start here and was just waiting to do so,' Auterac says. 'I was so close to messaging Louis and saying I'd come and work for free because I just love cooking. That's such a nice position to be in. 'I remember my first shift. You get a live calculation of how much you earn when you clock in and clock out. I saw the money I had earned. It wasn't much, but I was like 'f---, someone's paid me to f---ing cook.' That's f---ing awesome. 'You'd struggle to find a prop who didn't like food. I just naturally cooked a lot. There was a point where I was eating a steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner – every day. So that's why I'm quite good at cooking steaks here! I've always loved cooking for friends and family. I think it's such a rewarding thing when you give them some food and they're complimentary. 'There's a lot more to do here, though... pressure. If I f--- up at home, I'd say to the wife or kids: 'Sorry, I f---ed up.' But, here, you see the best and the worst of people because of that. We have people here who think the food is amazing and come to the kitchen, look through the window, give us a thumbs-up, poke their head round the door and say: 'That was unbelievable.' And then if you put out a s--- dish a waiter will come back to the kitchen and tell you.' As if Auterac were not spinning enough plates, he also coaches Old Millhillians, where Louis also happens to be a player. 'An interesting dynamic,' he says. 'If he f---s me off here I'll just go and f---ing make his life miserable playing rugby. Last year, the coach who started the season had a heart attack. I spoke to Louis and he said no one was coaching them and they just turned up in the evenings and ran about. I couldn't have that. I said I'd help out – and we lost every game! 'The closest we came to winning was about 30 or 40 points. We had a dreadful season and they still wanted me to come back! I couldn't believe it! If anyone wants to play for Old Millhillians, let me know. F---, we were dreadful.' It is heartening to hear that Auterac is still involved with a sport that gave him so much but which, by the end, was also taking so much. The only regret, somewhat ironically given the type of cuisine he dishes out, is that he never played in France. 'My back was so sore. I was lying in bed every night on Diazepam. Painkillers and muscle relaxants. I was taking them just to get to sleep at one point and that made me think: 'What the f--- am I doing?' When you're young, you're happy to kick your body in and smash it about and keep going. But I got to a stage where I thought doing that was just f---ing stupid. 'There was an offer, after Edinburgh. I think it might have been Bayonne? It would have been cool. But I was so done. I have no regrets because I f---ing put everything into it. Apart from the last half-year, I put f---ing everything into that.' Unflinchingly honest; just like his assessment of his nomadic playing career and rugby's 'squeezed middle'. 'Because there's not as much money in rugby as there is in, say, football, you can fall into the business side of it,' he says. 'So, for example, the middle was sort of squeezed. The top earners were kept the same; so, too, the bottom. So, if you were in the middle, you had to either become a bottom earner or up your game to become a top earner. 'The clubs had to make a business decision: do we get rid of Nick and get someone who is half the price or does Nick play better? Obviously, I didn't play better. Then they got Joe Bloggs for half the money. 'Then, obviously, you have to pack up and move. That takes a lot out of you. You have to make friends with a whole new squad, and get used to a new set-up, a new environment, which takes time. You had a routine. It was comfortable. Whereas when you have to keep moving, it's not just the rugby side, but the whole lifestyle that you need to adjust. And that takes a bit of time. It was quite difficult.' And the favourite of all his clubs? Northampton, he admits, but he still has a soft spot for, and many friends in, the others. Now, however, those experiences are a distant past, with his life as a de facto Frenchman ahead. 'My dad's side is French, but a long time ago,' Auterac says. 'I love the country so much I do sometimes pretend I'm French. I'd love to move there. I actually looked at a visa last year to do that but f---ing Brexit f---ed that up. The bloody b-------. There's actually a place in the south of France called Auteyrac. It's a tiny little village. My parents went to visit not long ago. They said it stank of cows--- and they'd never go back.' In Auterac's French enclave in north London, the aroma does not come close to resembling the village of Auteyrac. And he is the one – grafting at the stove, just as he did in the scrum – making sure of it.
