Born in Oxfordshire to parents of German heritage some 70 years ago, Christopher Richard ‘Rick’ Stein partially completed a hotel management traineeship and worked briefly as a chef before travelling around Australia, New Zealand and Mexico. He then went on to earn a degree in English from New College Oxford, graduating in the 1970s.
An early venture was a quayside nightclub in Padstow on the north Cornish coast, which became famous for its freeze-dried curries. When police closed the place down, it eventually became a bistro run by Stein and his then wife Jill. Since the mid-1970s, it has been called The Seafood Restaurant – in 2015, it celebrated its fortieth anniversary. At the last count, his business encompassed restaurants, a café and bistro, a patisserie, seafood delicatessen, cookery school and gift shop – leading Padstow to be dubbed ‘Padstein’.
In 2009, the chef took on the Cornish Arms at nearby St Merryn, with the aim of keeping it as a traditional Cornish inn. In October of the same year, he and Sarah Burns (his second wife) opened the doors at Rick Stein at Bannisters on the southern coast of New South Wales in Australia, at a place called Mollymook. He said: “I always knew that one day I’d open a restaurant celebrating this area’s local fish while keeping things very simple.”
Another Stein venture, the restaurant at Porthleven in Cornwall changed its name from Clay Quay to Rick Stein when he took it over in 2014. Opened in the same year, Rick Stein in Winchester was the first UK venture outside Cornwall. In 2015, there were new eatery openings on Fistral beach in Newquay and at Sandbanks in Dorset.
Indeed, a love of fresh fish and seafood is what this chef is best known for and it’s how he made his name during the 1990s. His first TV series and books were based on his work as a chef and his life as the owner of The Seafood Restaurant.
Since then Stein has, of course, become a well-known and popular TV presenter focusing on food, more predominantly seafood. He first got a chance to have his own series after an appearance on Floyd On Fish with Keith Floyd in the 1980s.
Over the years, his shows have included Fruits of the Sea, Rick Stein’s Taste of the Sea, Seafood Odyssey, Seafood Lovers’ Guide, French Odyssey, Mediterranean Escapes, Rick Stein’s India – a colourful journey in search of the perfect curry – and Rick Stein’s Spain, among others. His Long Weekends series saw Stein visiting short break destinations across Europe and in February 2016, Taste of Shanghai aired. Another food journey took the chef and restaurateur across the eastern Med from Venice to Istanbul. There has also been a book to go with each series, with English Seafood Cookery winning a Glenfiddich Book Award.
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