Raw

This is the autobiography of Britain's best-loved celebrity chef, revealing the man behind the recipes and lifting the lid on the bizarre world of the food mafia. Antony Worral Thompson's success has not been easily won. After an extraordinary and difficult childhood (he ran away from home aged 5), his story nearly came to an abrupt halt at 16, when a rugby accident left him horribly disfigured - and enormously insecure. Pioneering surgery saved the day and Worral Thompson found his feet as a chef, eventually helping to set up the Menage a Trois restaurant chain in 1981. Meanwhile his tempestuous love life was developing apace and his flamboyant style as restaurateur was making waves in the culinary establishment. Eventually came his big break into television and he's never looked back. With no formal training as a chef, Worral Thompson's rise to fame was unconventional to say the least, involving as it did Essex gangsters, back room brawls and some triple Michelin-starred scandals.