Keith Floyd - Career

Career

By 1971, Floyd had acquired three restaurants in Bristol, Floyd's Bistro in Princess Victoria Street in Clifton, Floyd's Restaurant in Alma Vale Road, and Floyd's Chop House in Chandos Road, Redland, Bristol. All three restaurants had financial problems. Floyd sold the restaurants and the rights to the name "Floyd's Restaurant" and moved to the south of France, where again he opened a restaurant in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse. After this again ended in financial problems, he moved back to England. With the help of loans from friends, he opened another restaurant in Chandos Road but, unable to use his own name, which he had sold, the establishment had a sign saying simply "Restaurant".

The restaurant in Chandos Road was frequented by actors and others connected with television. Floyd's first cookery book, Floyd's Food, published before he became a TV celebrity, had an introduction written by Leonard Rossiter, star of British TV sitcoms Rising Damp and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

Floyd's first foray into the world of show business was as a radio chef on Radio West, an independent commercial radio station in Bristol. TV producer David Pritchard then offered him a slot on BBC West regional magazine show RPM, presented by Andy Batten Foster. That led, in 1984, to his being offered his first BBC TV series Floyd on Fish, which started his rapid rise to national popularity. Floyd never described himself as a chef since he was untrained.

He became well known for cooking with a glass of wine in one hand, often in unusual locations such as a fishing boat in rough seas. He was regarded as a pioneer of taking cooking programmes out of the studio. The chef went on to present his shows from around the world, including France, Spain, Italy, India, Australia and the US, cooking on location in his unique chaotic style.

He bought and ran the Maltsters Arms in Tuckenhay, Devon in the late 1980s. When he was not running the kitchen, chefs included Jean Christophe Novelli. He was more often seen at the bar than in the kitchen. The failure of the Maltsters led to his bankruptcy.

Despite TV success, Floyd continued to have financial problems and personal conflicts. He was declared bankrupt in 1996. The Daily Mirror claims that this happened after he personally guaranteed an order for £36,000 of drinks. He lived in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland for a time in the mid-1990s.

In April 2008 he travelled to Singapore and Thailand in pursuit of new business ventures in Southeast Asia. Until his death he was actively involved in his restaurant Floyd’s Brasserie, located at the Burasari Resort on the popular Thai island of Phuket. This was his first Asian restaurant and Phuket’s first ever celebrity chef restaurant, drawing a large following of Floyd fans who remember his many TV series and cookbooks.

Floyd travelled widely to cook local dishes and entertain people around the world. His cooking shows were often marked by a tendency to consume wine during the preparation of the food.

A documentary Keith Meets Keith, featuring actor and comedian Keith Allen interviewing Floyd, was broadcast on Channel 4 on 14 September 2009 and watched by nearly one million people. In the programme, Floyd admitted that away from the cameras, he often drank too much out of loneliness. It later emerged that Floyd had collapsed and died shortly before the broadcast.