Henderson recalls one of his most telling childhood memories being coming downstairs to the debris of dinner the night before;
"a delicious smell of old cigar smoke and undrunk wine and coffee.....sensing that something good had been going on and I had been missing out."
"My mum cooked very well and my dad was a big eater and we travelled and ate very well in restaurants. They were a big feature in our lives. The theory is that our family was held together so well and for so long by a white tablecloth. It acted as a sort of bonding unit and it's always brought us back together again."
Although he vowed not to follow his father (architect Brian Henderson) footsteps, Fergus did study architecture. While he was studying he took over the running of a restaurant in Covent Garden on Sunday. Along with a couple of close friends, they cooked cassoulet or pot-au-feu for 200, still thinking that he was still destined to become an architect. By the time he and his new wife opened The French House, Soho, his career path was set. However he always sees a new restaurant, partly through the eyes of an architect and partly through the eyes of a chef. Henderson has some strong views on restaurant 'over design'. He feels that the the decoration should be the people eating, drinking and having a good time.
"I also had this theory that you could do recipes for buildings, because I felt that there was a danger that when you have a two-dimensional drawing and it turns into three dimensions, it seems to lack some magic. So I had this idea that somehow the magic that happens in a kitchen could be applied to a building. It worked in theory. I was a student and it was fun."
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