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Feasts fit for an England football team – Tim Barker, head chef of the Hilton at St George’s Park near Burton upon Trent, explains why great food is a recipe for success at this four-star hotel

- Kerryanne Clancy

It definitely takes dedication and passion to become a chef – 16-hour days, pressure to deliver hundreds of perfect dishes in a hot working environment, all while trying to inspire a kitchen team of varying experience to produce a peak performance in order to offer the best customer dining experience. Not for the faint-hearted certainly, but an environment in which Tim Barker feels perfectly at home as Head Chef at the Hilton at St George’s Park Hotel on the Derbyshire border, set in 330 acres and once home to the Bass brewery family.

Tim became acclimatised to the challenges of his future career from a young age, having watched his father in action as an Army chef. This role took him and his family all over the world, before a post at RAF Stafford brought them to the Midlands.

‘When I was a child I wasn’t much of a fan of school and when I was given the option of going to school or working,’ Tim recalls, ‘I did think about going into the Army, but it didn’t really fit in with what I wanted to do, so I went to Stafford College to study catering. That’s where I met my partner and I started work straight after.

‘My first big job was at the Duke of Bedford’s hotel in Woburn where I was a chef de partie. I stayed for five years and left as a junior sous chef. It was a new hotel and became a fine dining hotel.’

After that first post Tim worked in a wide range of restaurants all round the country, which included serving up Michelin-style food at the Woburn Estate, fine dining at The Priest House Hotel at Castle Donington and holding the position of Head Chef at Swinfen Hall Hotel. More recently Tim was Resort Head Chef at Alton Towers, an incredibly demanding role which involved providing meals for guests at all six resort kitchens.