Chef Mr Sat Bains, owner of the eponymous two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Nottingham, doesn’t give a f**k. His words, not ours. He doesn’t care that there is a huge rusty pylon towering over his restaurant, situated in what he lovingly calls a “s**thole”. He doesn’t give a damn that the pothole-strewn lane that leads you to his incredibly creative yet understated 10-course tasting menu is frequented more by doggers than gourmands. (We suspect he’s probably joking, but you get the idea.) He also finds it amusing that the unbecoming location of his restaurant on Lenton Lane proved so distasteful for one would-be diner that, after peering through the window of their Jaguar, they did a three-point turn and drove away at speed.

We know this because the chef, who has the frame of a wrestler and a foul mouth with a charmingly soft Yorkshire accent, is telling us so in his rather dainty restaurant garden, from which he manages to grow 95 per cent of the herbs he uses in his dishes. We are here because he is acknowledging (rather than celebrating) his restaurant’s 20th year, and discussing some of his favourite signature dishes.

So what does Mr Bains care about? Things that result in honest, creative cooking, it turns out. He has no time for glitzy industry events, for example. “At those things, you don’t get a chance to speak to people. You go, ‘All right?’ and move on. You’re rude. It makes you rude!” He isn’t obsessed with expansion – “I’m not going to do this in a hotel somewhere. If you want to eat here, get on that f**king train and get down here. You know what I mean?” – or a philosophy that requires an entire press release to explain. His attitude is a refreshing one in an industry that encourages chefs to feed you a concept rather than, well, food.

Mr Bains champions diligence – an attitude that comes with the territory, of course, but one bolstered by a tough, working-class Sikh upbringing in Derby. (His surname is pronounced “bayns” by the way – not, as some assume, like a French bath.) He is obsessive about his consistent, harmonious modern British tasting menu and he loves making people happy. Which is why he comes across as one of the warmest chefs in the business, and why he decided to turn “a negative into a positive” following the incident with the Jaguar in the only way he knew how. He cooked something amazingly inventive, and full of heart.

“I am going to make you love me” was the drive behind his dish NG7 2SA, pictured above. It’s a plate of food that means a lot to him, and a riposte to those who questioned the location of his restaurant, for which NG7 2SA is the postcode. As you might expect, the dish is a reflection of its surroundings; it takes something that might be seen as unpalatable and turns it into one of the best things you will ever eat. It’s a dish that constantly changes with the seasons. “We had this girl called Anna who came over for an interview,” says Mr Bains. “She found 24 herbs on the way. She was like a foraging pixie! Horseradish was next door, nettles, all this other veg, and it worked. All foraged from this region.”

Mr Bains was not always in a position to create such finessed food. He had little interest in cooking as a child, and he only joined a catering course at Derby College, aged 18, because he thought he’d meet girls there. After passing the course, he worked under a chef called Mr Mick Murphy, who introduced the young Mr Bains to the “obsessive nature” of cooking. “He blew my mind,” he says. “He was into flavour, he was a bit rock ’n’ roll. He awoke something in me.”

After working with Mr Raymond Blanc, he entered the Roux Scholarship in 1999. “I got to the final of the competition,” says Mr Bains, smirking at the memory. “All the chefs were from Michelin kitchens – high-calibre, all anal, like f**king robots. I’d come from a café. They were Michelin star, I was Dunlop star. I won the competition.” Which brought him – rather improbably, to his mind (“I took a wrong turn,” he jokes) – to the spot in which he is right now, formerly a hotel. “I don’t feel like I belong here,” he says. “That’s probably why I don’t get on with a lot of chefs.” Surely there must be some chefs he looks up to? “Not one. I like musicians or artists – that’s what I’m inspired by. Nature. I love aesthetics.”

In 2007 Mr Bains won another competition. He initially turned down the opportunity to go on Great British Menu but when he finally agreed to participate, he was victorious. This forms the backdrop to another dish he has selected as especially important to him. “We did loads of research on eggs, including the work [French chemist] Hervé This did on the structure of eggs,” he says of his winning dish of ham, egg and peas. “We looked at Japanese onsen tamago eggs, which are cooked in a bath, and thought, ‘f**k it’ – slow-cooked egg, ham, peas. Keep it British.”

“What do I think?” he says with a smile. “I think it was seven out of 10. It was a f**king egg. With ice cream. I don’t believe in 10 out of 10.” More of that refreshing self-deprecating cynicism, there.

A year later, Mr Bains came up with the third dish he wants to discuss with MR PORTER: chicken liver muesli. The way he describes it, it was a mistake – a “eureka moment”. He explains how he was cooking dishes for service one evening – “brioche toast, chutney, French beans, salad, shallots, roast foie gras, hazelnuts – classic French” – when the dish split and turned to liquid. “We were in the s**t,” he says. Then he remembered Mr Heston Blumenthal freezing an egg, so he did the same with his dish then smashed it up into little pieces: “Chicken liver muesli was born.” It’s something he’s clearly proud of, especially given the restaurant In Situ, housed in the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art, asked to use it on their menu.

Accolades and achievements aside – not to mention the 20 years he has spent on Lenton Lane – the thing he seems to value most is hard work. “I need to do a day’s work,” he says. “I’ve got a restless mind. Chaotic. It’s not healthy not to work. I like being tired on a Saturday night; to go home, put the fire on and have a glass of Japanese whisky, knowing I’ve done a job.” And, as you might expect, he is certainly not one for the limelight. We doubt we’ll be seeing him as the star of his own TV show any time soon. “I’ve got 95,000 Instagram followers. When I get to 100,000 I’m done. I’m deleting it. F**k this s**t. It’s a drain on me. If you know me, if you need to contact me, call me. ‘What’s up, chief?’ I don’t want a text, a WhatsApp, nothing.”

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