It’s a real thrill to be recognised: I’m often greeted at The Lavender House as Mr Adlard or Mr Hickman. On civvy street, people I served only the night before will gaze at me quizzically, desperately trying to place where they’ve seen me before. “I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on!” is a regular refrain, the customer being more used to seeing me in bedraggled whites instead of pushing a trolley down a supermarket aisle in jeans and a t-shirt.

Despite what the famous tell you, particularly those whose career is just to BE famous, it’s nice to be noticed, never more so than when you’re dining out. For the majority of us, it’s not a case of expecting special treatment, but it’s always nice to have an acknowledgement of your support and appreciation that you’ve chosen to dine at a particular venue once again despite a myriad of choice.

I’m lucky in that after 20 or so years running restaurants in the county I have a healthy, loyal and wonderful band of regulars.These are people who have supported me through ups and downs and through venue and menu changes, so it would be remiss of me not to know their favourite table, what they like to drink, the fact they love our peanut butter parfait but not cinnamon on their doughnuts and if they forget their credit card, that they can pay me the next time they’re passing.

It’s called good manners to have an interest in the people who pay our wages and, as I’m always pointing out to my colleagues, our job is simply to make people happy. If that means making a little extra effort to accommodate individual foibles, that’s what we’re here for. But it seems my efforts may not be quite enough with the news that Heston Blumenthal is once again going the extra mile for his most-prized customers. To ensure you really enjoy your meal he’s taken to conducting online research about you after you book, compiling a dossier of biographical details and has even been chatting to mind magician Derren Brown about how he can find out things about people “without them being too aware”. I often think my team in the kitchen think I’m a mind reader, now it appears I may have to be.

I find all this very odd and not a little disconcerting. Most diners who visit top-end restaurants want something other than the norm and those that don’t will continue to frequent the steak and burger joints, so I think the pretence of second-guessing what a customer will want falls at the first hurdle. If Heston researched me, I’d arrive expecting a dinner of scallops, foie gras, fish and chips, banana milkshake and Fab ice lollies. On second thoughts it’s quite possible I’d get that at The Fat Duck.

Perhaps it’s all storm in an edible tea cup, or possibly a great publicity wheeze. I don’t think we should be too concerned that our privacy is about to be invaded, as there’s very little chance of a table, he claims to be having 30,000 calls a day as diners chase one of the 40 seats available in his restaurant.