CHEF Jonathan Nichols can’t compete with those celebrity chefs when it comes to losing his cool in the kitchen.

Jonathan, owner and head chef at La Cachette in Elland, says: "I’m a pretty fair boss, but I’m not going to deny there are occasions when I have a bit of a rant.

"I suppose Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White are at the pinnacle when it comes to a show of temper.

"There’s no justification for it, really. But when you serve a meal that is not as good as the customer expects, someone is going to get criticised."

Jonathan’s speaking between sips from a Mr Men coffee cup bought for him by his daughter Ami. The cup has Mr Grumpy on it and Jonathan smiles: "I think she was trying to tell me something!"

And if he does get a little cross, it’s all in the cause of customer service. "I see this business as inviting people into my house," he says.

"People are paying for the food we produce. If you invited someone into your home and gave them a shabby meal, it would be embarrassing."

Good food and service are essential, he says, but adds: "It is the little things that make the difference.

"It is down to how the table looks, how the customer is spoken to.

"If someone is working in the restaurant on a busy night and the bar is packed and a customer is waiting, all it needs is to say ‘good evening’ and ‘I’ll be with you in a second’.

"I tell my staff, it’s not me paying your wages – it’s the customers.

"The service has to be up to scratch. You can serve three-star Michelin food, but if it isn’t served to the customer properly, they won’t come back.

"It is the whole package. It’s like being on the stage. You are putting on a show from the moment the customer walks through the door to when they leave."

Jonathan has been in charge at La Cachette – French for ‘hiding place" – for the past nine years. Owning the business has realised a long-held ambition for the Bradford-born chef, who first got interested in cooking as a boy helping his grandmother bake cakes.

A neighbour owned a restaurant in Guiseley and at the age of 14, Jonathan began working Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday lunchtimes as a kitchen porter, doing the washing up.

After leaving school, Jonathan studied catering for two years at Bradford and Ilkley College and also worked one night a week at Holdsworth House in Halifax.

Completing his college studies in 1988, he went to work as live-in comis chef at a pub-hotel in Kettlewell before working at Rombalds hotel and restaurant in Ilkley for 18 months.

However, he kept in touch with the head chef at Holdsworth House and about six months later was offered a junior position on the kitchen staff.

He quickly rose through the ranks and at the age of 20 became second chef in the busy kitchen, having already amassed six years experience in the industry.

Keen to get a head chef post, he applied for jobs at the Healds Hall Hotel in Liversedge and Clarks Hotel in Bradford – where he ruled the kitchen for 18 months and worked with former college mate Andrew Bradley, who was restaurant manager there.

Ever ambitious, they began searching for a restaurant to run for themselves and found the ideal location at Fitzwilliam Street in Huddersfield. In November, 1993, they opened Bradley’s – and built up a business which has been successful ever since.

"The first 18 months were rough," says Jonathan. "Then we got a glowing review in a regional newspaper. From then on, it just took off.

"At the time, we seated about 75. In 1998, we added another 50 covers.

"We had already got into the Good Food Guide in 1994 and the restaurant has been in ever since."

In 2001, Jonathan decided to move on. "I spent six months gathering my thoughts," he says. "I spent six months at Bertie’s in Elland, helping with the outside catering and six months on a consultancy basis at Healds Hall.

"The owners of La Cachette were looking for a head chef.

"I had been self-employed for 10 years and I told them that if there was the opportunity to get into the business, I would like to take it."

Having been a partner for some time, he is now sole owner of the 85-cover restaurant on Huddersfield Road – a state of affairs that allows him to put his own stamp on the place.

But he says: "If you change things too dramatically, you will alienate your existing customers.

"We have tried to keep up with the times. La Cachette isn’t a modern restaurant, but it doesn’t date, either.

"We have changed little things and there are other things we want to change.

"But we have some customers who come week in, week out and order the same dish."

Says Jonathan: "I have to do the bookkeeping and the paperwork, but I am very active in the kitchen because at the end of the day, my main role is head chef.

"It certainly means long days – coming in early in the mornings and finishing at 11 o’clock at night."

Jonathan tries to get a day off during the week, but doesn’t always manage it.

A keen runner he has competed in the London Marathon for the past two years to raise money for the NSPCC – having been inspired by comic Eddie Izzard’s multi-marathon efforts. Jonathan will take part again next year.

He has also taken to the martial art of Taekwando. "It is one of those things I wish I’d started doing earlier," he says. "My son Josh started when he was six or seven and he had been doing it for 12 months before I decided I might have a go at it.

"I started doing it just for fitness, but it has ‘evolved’ and I am now a first dan black belt. Josh is going for his second dan black belt, so I’ve a bit to do to catch up!"

At home, Jonathan will cook the Sunday roast, although he admits that the family’s hectic schedule means the occasional takeaway for midweek evening meals.

And he doesn’t see himself taking a back seat at the restaurant.

"It’s in your blood," he says. "A couple of pals of mine have tried to go out of the industry and failed miserably.

"If I took a back seat, I’d have to find something else to do – probably open another restaurant!"