MAX GNOYKE
My career started at 13 working for my parents in the family’s country house hotel in the West Country. I then progressed to London to the Connaught Hotel in Michel Bourdin’s Michelin-starred kitchens before going on to work for Michel & Albert Roux at the three-Michelin-starred Gavroche.
After a stint at Gravetye Manor, a Relais Chateau in Sussex, I then joined Paul Heathcote in Lancashire. The relatively new restaurant in Longridge had gained its first Michelin star and part of my brief was to help gain a second star and look at the possibilities of helping Paul open another restaurant.
The second Michelin star came a little over a year after I started, placing the Longridge restaurant among the top eight restaurants in the UK. The focus then was on to expanding the Heathcotes business.
I opened both Heathcotes Brasserie & Simply Heathcotes in Manchester as Executive Chef, gaining a Michelin red M for both amongst many other accolades. Both restaurants were very much ground-breaking for the mid-nineties and helped set the scene for what is now a vibrant eating-out culture in the North West.
My role then developed out of the kitchen and as Managing Director of Heathcotes Restaurants, I became responsible for everything within the business – a true restaurateur. Under my management, Heathcotes became one of the North West’s premier restaurant groups.
At the end of 2007, I felt the need to go it alone & recognised an opportunity in the market for a quality, hands-on consultancy service tailored to each of its clients’ needs. Early in 2008 Full of Flavour was born.