Revelations: Sarah Barber, executive pastry chef, Hotel Café Royal, London

What was your best subject at school?
Food technology

What was your first job?
Pastry commis at the Park Lane Hotel

What do you do to relax?
I read or have a massage

Which is your favourite restaurant?
Yauatcha

What is your favourite drink?
Aperol spritz

What is your favourite cuisine?

Which ingredient do you hate the most?
Truffle

Are there any foods/ingredients that you refuse to cook with?
Mustard and olives â€" I cannot stand them

What flavour combinations do you detest?
Strawberry and balsamic

Which person in catering have you most admired?
French pastry chef Philippe Conticini

Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?
Valrhona Tanariva milk chocolate

If not yourself, who would you rather have been?
A millionaire

If you had not gone into catering, where do you think you would be now?
Working in something food-related, such as a food stylist or a journalist

Tell us a secret…
I love cooking simple food at home

What irritates you most about the industry?
The younger generation of chefs who think they know it all and have an answer for everything

What’s your favourite film?
Iron Man 3

What is your favourite prepared product?
I don’t eat prepared food

Who would be in your ‘fantasy’ brigade?
My pastry team at Hotel Café Royal are my dream team; it took 18 months to build the brigade