Last night we were treated to a visit to the studio by Fergus Henderson, famous chef, advocate of nose to tail eating and proprietor of the St John restaurant over the road from work where we often drink too much on a Friday night.

Fergus is an uncommonly interesting guy, trained as an architect, now a world famous chef and founding father of the young British art scene. I imagine Damien Hirst got a good deal on all the cattle he had to saw up from his Smithfield contacts. He told us lots of stories about the places he has been and the weird and wonderful things he has eaten, including cobra, squirrel and dog, washed down with a nice bile vodka. He does, however refuse to eat raw celery or hamsters.

Fergus suffers from Parkinson’s Disease and has given hope to many by being one of the first to undergo pioneering surgery to manage his condition, and even in that respect alone, he really is an inspirational figure. His wit and enthusiasm had us all fascinated.

He talked about all sorts of things, but one of the most interesting themes was the parallels he sees between his craft and that of a designer. His opening gambit was that creatives were like Jedi and that we should turn off our sights when shooting and use the force instead. I wouldn’t have put him down as a science fiction fan. In particular I liked these quotes:

“Limitations are good things. Enjoy limitations, tease them.”

“We all love chaos, but you can’t design it, it ends up disappointing and trite.”

He sees many things as recipes for action, much the same as we do as designers, taking ingredients from our own experience and environment and mixing them to serve up something delicious. He talked a lot about time and place, knowing as any good designer does, that having the right idea is great, but having it at the right time is magical.

I’m afraid I can’t recall some of the other things he said, after the talk we all went over to the St John for beer you see. Oh, he did say something else I remember:

“I’ve got a branding challenge for you: Tripe.”

The picture of Fergus here is from notquitenigella.com where you can read an actual interview with Fergus instead of this offal account.