Knowing me, knowing you: Bruno and Laeticia Loubet

A relationship under the microscope

Bruno Loubet, 50, is the chef behind the acclaimed Bistrot Bruno Loubet in the Zetter Hotel in London's Clerkenwell. Born in Bordeaux, he has worked at many award-winning restaurants including La Tante Claire and his own L'Odeon

I never thought Laeticia would work in the restaurant business, I always thought she would go into fashion or something like that. So I was quite surprised when she said that was what she wanted to do. Especially because the children have all grown up seeing me work 16 hours a day, I thought I had put them off the restaurant business for good. It's great to see her in action at work; she's getting on really well and she's going for it. She's really taken an interest in the business: she knows everything about the chefs, what they're doing, who's in charge of what. I'm quite surprised at how she has taken to it. She really puts 100 per cent of herself into her job. We very rarely get cross with each other but it's usually me who is responsible. Sometimes I get nervous because she asks me for too many recipes. That's what she always wants from me: recipes, recipes, recipes. I tell her that I don't have the time to do them but she wants them by the afternoon. I get annoyed sometimes because there are too many things to do, but afterwards I always feel very guilty and embarrassed that I have raised my voice at her so I go back to her and say sorry and tell her that I'll get on with the recipes right away. She really calms me down. It's nice because now that I've seen her at work, I know that she will try her best at any job she does in the future. It find it quite reassuring really.

www.bistrotbrunoloubet.com Tel: 020 7324 4401

Laeticia Loubet, 26, is Bruno Loubet's eldest daughter. She is an executive at the food PR company Network London

The PR agency I work for represents chefs, restaurants and restaurateurs and I've been working on my father's restaurant since its launch early last year. It's handy because it means that if I need something from him, I don't have to chase him like the other chefs; I can go home and pester him. He lives five minutes away from me so I often go around after work to get recipes from him for whichever magazine or newspaper needs them. We've probably got a little annoyed at each other before, but ultimately he wants to help me do my job the best that I can. It's great because I've got an inside view into how the restaurant business works and how the kitchen works, so I understand his life more and the demands made of him. He was away in the evenings working hard when we were growing up, so we didn't see a lot of him except for on a Sunday. But you have to make these sacrifices when you work in that industry. There were obvious perks to having a chef father, though. For instance, we always had the best birthday cakes. He's very creative and he'd make a cake with the latest Disney creation on or something like that. Our friends would be very jealous. It's funny because although we often had these amazing meals, sometimes we just wanted to have fish fingers like our friends. Obviously, now I appreciate it more. All of the family works in the business. My sister Laura works for Taste of London and my other sister, who's 13 years old, has already had recipes of hers published in magazines. I suppose it was inevitable that we would all end up in the industry.

As told to Gillian Orr