All jobs have their perks, it's just that some jobs have better perks than others.

Hopefully the benefits are commensurate with the effort put in, so I feel no guilt about taking a few whirlwind days to visit some hospitality venues making the headlines. This inevitably means a couple of nights in London. This time we're exploring Spitalfields, so we can jump off at Liverpool Street and be straight in the thick of it.

When trade is buoyant and a working week of 70 odd hours becomes the norm, it's easy to get stuck in the day-to-day, offering up exactly what you’ve always given to an ever-more discerning customer. But in today's market you have to try and stay ahead of the game.

The Assembly House was one of the first places in the county to offer afternoon tea but nowadays every hotel, restaurant and department store have seen the (tea)light. Thankfully for us, few can replicate the splendour of our surroundings, but that doesn’t stop us continually striving to up our game. I prefer not to see it as stealing ideas, but rather as gaining inspiration!

The kitchen becomes all-consuming, most chefs have no idea of what goes on beyond the hotplate. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Royal weddings, celebrity demises, political scandals: all have passed me by. The most important thing in your life is, instead, what time the butcher will turn up with your order.

We're less than two hours from the restaurant capital of the world, but if you don’t make the effort, you may as well be on the moon.

I maintain you can learn as much from a lunch out as you can a dozen glossy books ghost-written for the latest hot ticket TV chef.

As ever, I will always try to take it one step further and as such we are reintroducing our work experience scheme for our most enthusiastic and loyal kitchen team members, with ’stages' arranged in some of the country's finest kitchens.

Our brigade has, in the past, enjoyed working weeks at the very finest West End hotels, Michelin-feted temples of gastronomy, bakeries in the South of France, chocolate shops, local butchers and bakers. As a business it's not without cost or risk: we pay the employees' wages while they're at the placement, their travel expenses and accommodation. We also run the risk of them impressing and subsequently getting offered employment at the kitchen they’ve been to! It's a back-handed compliment, but the regret at losing a beloved member of your team is accepted with good grace if their direction is upwards.

Staff return inspired, enthused, inevitably in shock but aware of the possibilities that a life in hospitality can offer. There’s something quite thrilling about the boy from Mattishall working at Le Troisgros brothers in the Loire via Guy Savoy Paris, the Waterside Inn in Bray, the Hotel School Norwich and The Assembly House.

It's living proof of what I’m always telling them: stick at it through good days and bad and you can go wherever you like.

Occasionally it's reverse psychology. If after a couple of years experience the graduating apprentice thinks they've invented cookery, it's the equivalent of a short sharp shock to send them out into the real world and to a head chef who makes me look like Oprah Winfrey!

So think of me next week, as I pack in three tasting menus, two afternoon teas and an all-day breakfast at The Polo Bar outside the station. As the old saying goes: 'it's a dirty job but someone has to do it'.