Lee Smith at Bexhill Farm Kitchen

As head baker of The Dorchester hotel, Lee Smith made sure Hollywood actor Will Smith had strawberries on his danish pastry.

He created a sunflower and pumpkin seed bun specially For Tony Bennett, and found out how Nelson Mandela preferred his breakfast roll to be presented - on a plate with a doily.

He made intricate dough baskets decorated with roses for the Queen, carried out special requests for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and baked for the entire cast of Friends while they filmed a special in London.

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It was exacting and demanding work in Park Lane but these days Lee brings his expertise to Bexhill - he took over the Farmhouse Kitchen with wife Kirsty five years ago and the couple have turned the lowkey Western Road business into a thriving success that looks set to shrug off the recession.

Lee grew up in Langmere Point, Eastbourne, and has memories even as a child helping his grandparents in the kitchen of their guesthouse.

He realised at school that he had a natural ability for baking and remembers the only time he achieved success was in the cookery class.

"It was really straightforward for me," said Lee, now 40.

"I remember the only merit I got in five years at school was for my Victoria sponge. I don't think the girls in the class could believe I had beaten all of them - and I don't think the teacher did either.

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"But it came easy...I had that feeling, and always have done, of wanting everything to be as good as I can get it, even if that means chucking stuff away that I'm not happy with and I don't want to put out in the shop. To be honest, with the hours we have in bakery, if I didn't have that feeling I would not still be doing it."

It's a tough profession by anyone's standards - Lee usually starts work in the evening between 10.30 and 11pm and works through to 8am, making 110 loaves a night and 200 rolls, but even more on Friday night because of increased local demand at the weekend.

It's paid off however because these days the Farmhouse Kitchen does more business in one day that it used to in an entire week, with customers queuing out the door for custom-built sandwiches, cheese scones, and almond croissants as well as a wide variety of fresh specialist breads - including Tony Bennett's favourite seeded roll.

Lee left Bishop Bell school at 16 and started work at the Saffron Patisserie in Grove Road, Eastbourne, at the same time undertaking a three year apprenticeship at Brighton College of Technology.

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Having met Kirsty when both were in their mid-teens, he worked his way up the ladder and began at the Dorchester in 1997, also Sally Clarke's in London, and Victoria Park Plaza.

Lee had visited Bexhill as a youngster when he was a keen BMX rider so was familiar with the Farmhouse Kitchen when it came up for sale. He negotiated for two years until a deal was struck.

"I always liked this shop - I always loved the way you could see through to the bakery. Now at the Farmhouse Kitchen we do on a Saturday what the shop used to do in the whole week, and it's gone from having four part-time workers to a staff of 13.

"People say good things about it - the amount of compliments we get from customers is fantastic.

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"The biggest compliment we have for the bread pudding is when someone comes up to us and says - this is as good as my mum used to make.

"Not many people will turn around and say - this is better, just out of respect to their parents, but when they say it is as good as their mum used to make, it is as great a compliment as you are ever going to get."

The plan now is to keep the Farmhouse Kitchen firing on all cylinders to ride out the economic downturn, as Lee commented: "Business has gone down a little bit but now as much as we expected it to.

"We had planned to look at expanding, to supply other places, but considering how the economy is we will wait until summer and try to keep this business strong.

"Priorities have changed over the last few months - but strong businesses will survive, places like Woolworths haven't gone because of the credit crunch, they were going anyway."