Londoner Matthew Bradford, group beverage buyer of the Cafe Deco Group, started his F&B career at the age of 19 as a kitchen porter at Le Dome on Paris' Left Bank. He has since worked in other parts of France, as well as Britain and Canada. His career history includes a stint at The Groucho Club in London, and posts as a bar and restaurant manager, wine buyer and wine buying consultant.
In 2004, he managed the opening of London's Roka Restaurant and Shochu Lounge, and later repeated the role in Hong Kong for Sakesan in SoHo. He trained as a bartender, is a qualified sommelier, and was appointed an honorary kikisake-shi - sake sommelier - by the Sake Service Institute of Japan. While working as head bartender at The Rotterdam, which was a Dutch brasserie and microbrewery in Toronto, he also served an apprenticeship as a master brewer.
How did you end up working in Paris?
At 19, I was working for Mr Byrite on Oxford Street and I hit it off with a French girl who came in looking for a job. I went with her to Paris for the weekend, fell in love with the place and moved there. I got a job as a kitchen porter, and was forced on the head chef, who was a complete Anglophobe.
That must have been fun
He hated me, but I worked my way up quickly to commis/demi chef de partie for fish, and then the head sommelier came to me and said: 'What do you know about wine?' I said: 'Absolutely nothing,' and he offered me an apprenticeship. I was a blank page and he wanted to fill me. He was a fantastic mentor - influenced by the so-called Judgment of Paris [a landmark blind tasting in 1976 at which Californian wines beat those from France]. He taught me that 'grapes don't wave flags'. What they want is the right terroir. I was exposed to all the great classic wines of France and the regional wines. I passed my apprenticeship and got my tastevin (a silver wine-tasting cup).
How did you become a sake sommelier?