The language of love

He calls himself The Crazy Bull but his passion for food and family has made him a TV favourite. Tiffany Dunk meets Miguel Maestre and Sascha, the woman who tamed him.

- Tiffany Dunk

Some 20 years ago, Sascha Newport was arriving for work at an upscale cocktail bar in Edinburgh, Scotland, when the new Spanish doorman – whose swarthy good looks had already caused excited commentary among the female staff – swung into action.

“Beautiful eyes, beautiful,” he murmured to the 21-year-old Australian waitress in his heavily accented English, gallantly holding the door as a blushing Sascha scurried inside.

Thrilled, Sasha told a workmate about the encounter.

“Oh the bouncer?” her friend scoffed. “He told me I had beautiful eyes too!”

That bouncer was Miguel Maestre who, at 20 years old, had recently arrived in the city without a lick of English to his name. His roommate had given him pointers to communicate in a rudimentary fashion with the staff and clientele of the bar, which he hoped would lead to a job in the kitchen.

“It was a really cool place, like the Ivy in London, really exclusive,” he tells The Weekly today. “When I first met Sascha I couldn’t speak one word of English but we clicked.”

At the time, Sasha had hit pause on a round-the-world trip in order to work and save money for the last leg. Miguel, meanwhile, had just arrived from his hometown of Murcia, Spain, to chase his dreams of working in the world’s best restaurants.

His love of cooking had come young watching his parents side by side preparing meals for their huge extended family. “You would see them at the sink together, my dad cleaning calamari, my mother cooking,” he says. “Some of the best memories I have in my life are those beautiful ones. I think the kitchen is the only place that I belong.”