VANESSA Wade is just 32 but can boast almost 20 years’ experience in the catering industry. It is, she says, all she has ever wanted to do.

It has also been quite a journey.

Born in California, raised in Minnesota and trained in New York, Vanessa arrived at Thorpe Thewles, just outside Stockton, a couple of years ago, via South Africa.

“I worked in a restaurant called the Chocolate Mousse from the age of 14 and that was all I ever really wanted to do,” she says.

“All the people who worked there were really interesting, just the type of people I wanted to hang out with.

“I did everything from scooping ice cream to mopping the floors.”

At 16 she enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in New York which Vanessa describes as the best school of its type in the US, if not further afield.

“I was sponsored by Rotary, moved to New York and it was a fantastic education.”

Two years later Vanessa emerged with an associates degree in culinary arts and was ready to take on the world. However, things weren’t quite so straightforward.

“It’s all about connections in New York. I was 19 and broke at the time. I sold a gold coin I had to get my first apartment and started cocktail waitressing until I could get a job in a restaurant.”

The big break came courtesy of her sous chef cousin Michelle Antonishek who helped get her a job at the two Michelin starred Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan, run by noted restaurateur Danny Meyer.

“He was the guy to work for,” says Vanessa. “The restaurant could feed about 300 people a day. The whole philosophy was about treating people properly and the food focus was on flavour first and then presentation.”

After three years, it was time to move on.

“I wanted to continue learning about chocolate and high end desserts,” she explains.

This led to Le Cirque, in Maddison Avenue, New York, run by another famed culinary empire, the Maccioni family, and a favourite with the city’s celebrities.

A year later and Vanessa went to work for Francois Payard, who she describes as the godfather of pastry in New York.

“He is an absolutely mad Frenchman, but every good pastry chef who has gone through New York has gone through Payard’s. It is a schooling all of its own.

“I really enjoyed him and we still keep in contact.”

If these chefs are relatively unknown in the UK, Vanessa’s next employer is perhaps the most famous restaurateur on both sides of the Atlantic – Gordon Ramsay.

She was part of a large team of chefs recruited for the opening of The London in New York.

It was an unforgettable experience.

“Everyone was talking about how amazing this place was going to be,” recalls Vanessa.

“Everyone wanted to work for him and I was quite lucky to get in. His reputation is big in the States due to his television shows Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares.”

It was not for the fainthearted.

“I was part of the team that opened the restaurant and it was hectic. I was working from 7am to 2am, 12 days in a row.

“This went on for about six months and I was shattered.

I did a year but by the end I just could not create.”

It was time for another change.

“I was 25 and I was wanting to see the world but terrified to go on my own,” she said.

Having worked with a South African sous chef at The London, she headed to Knysna, on the famous Garden Route, where she went to work for master bread baker and chocolatier Markus Farbinger.

It was while in South Africa she met future husband Tom, part of the Wade catering family which has been serving private and corporate clients in County Durham, North Yorkshire and the North-East for the past 20 years.

“Tom was working for Waterford, the top winery in South Africa. We had exactly the same group of friends but never really met until I started working for his best friend’s family doing chocolate training.”

They became room mates before love blossomed and they came back to the UK to marry in August 2012.

Visa problems then meant a three-week visit to New York to see her mother turned into six months before Vanessa could move permanently to the UK, by which time Tom and his parents, Ray and Sally-Ann, had taken on the Vane Arms at Thorpe Thewles.

Tom and Vanessa took the reins on her return and things have been going well.

“We have increased sales this year by about 25 per cent,” she says.

With Vanessa taking charge of starters and desserts, they have taken on Ryan McDonnel, a young chef trained by Newcastle-based chef-patron Terry Laybourne.

“We have the most fantastic energy in here with a group of people excited about what we are doing.

“We are food focused – I love creating fantastic pastries and bread at the pub – but people are just as welcome to come in for a pint.”

  • Vanessa will be contributing occasional bread and pastry recipes to our weekly Eating In feature.