For 12 years, brute force was Nick Auterac’s currency as he propped up the scrum for some of the Gallagher Premiership’s best sides.
Finesse wasn’t really a part of his job description in professional rugby.
Now, as he stands in the kitchen of a chic French brasserie in the affluent London suburb of West Hampstead and fillets steak for the evening service, there is suddenly a need for delicacy.
Auterac’s new career couldn’t be more different from what he had become used too. After leaving rugby behind, he has slimmed down and embarked on a new life as a chef. Some old habits, however, die hard.
‘I do still knock into things quite a lot and I can be a bit heavy handed sometimes too,’ says Auterac, decked out in chef’s whites and apron instead of training gear.
‘I’ve lost about 25 kilos. You do so many steps in the kitchen and you’re so busy, you don’t actually end up eating that much.’
Former rugby prop Nick Auterac has left his sport behind for a new career working as a chef
Auterac talked to Mail Sport at French Society – a West Hampstead restaurant in London
Auterac admits his old life as a prop means he still bumps into things in the kitchen these days
In a parallel universe, Auterac – still only 32 – would have been part of the Bath side which won the Premiership title at Twickenham last weekend as part of an historic treble. He made close to 100 appearances for The Rec outfit and also played for Saracens, where he started his career, as well as Harlequins and Northampton.
Auterac’s time in rugby came to an end in Edinburgh in 2023.
‘I was just f****** done,’ he says. Auterac seems well suited to life as a chef as expletives regularly punctuate this interview.
He adds: ‘The coaches and the players knew that. Everyone in the f****** city of Edinburgh knew that. I started a Masters in music production thinking it would kick me on and I’d be the next f****** David Guetta!’
Auterac graduated with first-class honours. But he didn’t find the music industry to be as he envisaged, so then came another dramatic pivot. The former loosehead met chef Louis Bird, who is an ex-school contemporary, in a London gym and soon embarked on a fresh chapter. Auterac has always been a passionate foody.
But he had ‘zero training’ in what is required to work as a chef full time before doing just that. ‘You’d struggle to find a prop who doesn’t like food. I love food. I always just naturally cooked a lot,’ Auterac adds.
‘There was a point where I was eating a steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner – every day. That’s why I’m quite good at cooking steaks here!
‘I’ve always loved cooking for friends and family. I think it’s such a rewarding thing when you give them some food and they’re complimentary There is pressure. If I f*** up at home, I’d say: “Sorry, I f***** up.” But, here, you can’t do that and you see the best and the worst of people because of that.
‘I’d be lying if I said the kitchen buzz was at the same level as rugby, but there’s definitely an element to it. There’s nothing like playing in front of 15,000 people at Franklin’s Gardens knowing you’re going to get your head kicked in for 90 minutes!’
Auterac says: ‘You’d struggle to find a prop who doesn’t like food. I love food.’
The forward appeared for Northampton and loved his time there before joining Edinburgh
Alongside Bird, Auterac is now a chef at French Society and loving his post-rugby life.
He has also recently become engaged to fiancée Viviana.
‘It’s proper French bistro food here. It’s fun to cook and f*** it’s tasty,’ he says. ‘But it’s not very good for you. If you’re on a diet, don’t eat it.
‘There’s literally butter, cream and sugar in f****** everything. We do massive sirloin steaks with bone marrow butter. The duck confit, slowly cooked in oil, is lovely and tender.
‘We put it on the charcoal right at the end to crisp it up. I do around 30,000 steps a day in the kitchen. I’m probably one of the only chefs who goes home and stretches.
‘I’ll get the p*** taken out of me for that!’
Not all rugby players exit the game and find a new job they’re happy with. Auterac has and is certainly fortunate to be in that position.
His passion for cooking is clear, helped by it running in the family. Auterac’s sister Georgina is a private chef and until recently, was working for former Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou.
Auterac, at work filleting steak for dinner, admits he is lucky to be ‘happy’ in his post-rugby life
But his rugby departure was, unfortunately, now typical for a game which has had to cut back amid severe financial challenges.
Premiership clubs have had to reduce their squad sizes, leaving players out of work. Auterac had a fine career and was a solid, dependable front-row forward.
But he wasn’t a top international nor a young academy player, falling between those two stools. In Auterac’s own words, rugby’s middle ground has been ‘squeezed.’
It is something happening not only in England, but worldwide.
‘There are those in the middle – which is where I put myself – who are not earning top or bottom money. I succumbed to the business side of it all,’ Auterac adds.
‘The clubs had to make a business decision: Do we get rid of Nick and get someone who is half the price or does Nick play better? Obviously, I didn’t play better. Then they got Joe Bloggs for half the money.’
Auterac harbours no ill feeling to the game which gave him more than a decade of playing at the highest level. But at the same time, he has now left rugby behind and is content to have done so. Auterac’s longest playing stint at one club came with Bath.
But with job security scarce, he had grown tired of bouncing between teams. He was always on the move. The brutal realities of what it takes to play the game today and the physical impact it has on a player’s body also became a factor as Auterac got older and the contract offers lessened.
Playing professional rugby in the Gallagher Premiership impacted Auterac physically
‘My back was so sore. I was lying in bed every night on diazepam, painkillers and muscle relaxers,’ he says. ‘I was taking them just to get to sleep at one point and that made me think, “What the f*** am I doing?”
‘When you’re young, you’re happy to kick your body in and keep going. But I got to a stage where I thought doing that was just f****** stupid.
‘I have no regrets because I f****** put everything into it. The frustrating thing is that I succumbed to the business side of it all. I could maybe have dragged out another few years, but there were other things I wanted to do with my life.
‘I thought I’d pack it in and I did so on my terms. I’m not going to lie, my back was pretty f***** by the end.’
Auterac won’t ever return to the rugby field. He is very clear about that. The long evening and weekend shifts which come with life as a chef are a big part of that.
But he does still retain some involvement in the game, coaching at London side Old Millhillians for whom Bird – Auterac’s boss – still plays.
‘It is an interesting dynamic. If Louis f**** me off here, I’ll just go and make his life miserable playing rugby,’ Auterac says with a smile. ‘But I’m so grateful to him for giving me this opportunity. Last year, the coach who started the season had a heart attack. I spoke to Louis and he said no-one was coaching them.
‘I couldn’t have that. I said I’d help out and then we lost every game! The closest we came to winning was about 30 or 40 points. We had a dreadful season and they still wanted me to come back! I couldn’t believe it.
‘In my first game, we lost by 70 points. A lot of them went like that. You can put this in the article – if anyone wants to play for Old Millhillians, let me know!’
Auterac had ‘zero training’ to work as a chef before doing so but did have a love of cooking
In a riotous interview, Auterac talked through how he made a significant career change
Auterac would have loved to have played in France, a country with which he has a great affinity. It is no surprise French cuisine is now his preferred culinary choice.
‘There’s actually a place in the south of France called Auteyrac,’ he says, before breaking into another big grin. ‘It’s a tiny little village. My parents went to visit not long ago. They said it stank of cow s*** and they’d never go back!’
Auterac remains close with Bath and England lock Charlie Ewels. He emphasises his fondness for Northampton. His weight loss can in part be attributed to his training for an upcoming half Ironman challenge. Auterac played for Bath in their 2015 Premiership final defeat by Saracens. If things had worked out differently, he could have been a treble winner alongside friend Ewels this season.
But that is not the way Auterac looks at things. He is happy with his lot.
That much is clear during 45 minutes of engaging conversation. It is not often an interview with a former rugby player gets interrupted for a fresh bread delivery.
But this was one.
‘I’d do this for free,’ Auterac says. ‘I cook because I love it. I played rugby because I loved it. They’re what I call passion jobs. I loved Northampton. It’s a proper rugby town. I liked Bath. It was a weird time under Mike Ford.
‘There was always a little bit of pressure lingering around. When we had a bad season, the instability would return which made it not a nice place to be.
Auterac says he loves cooking so much he would happily do it for free, not that he has to
If Auterac’s career had been different, he could have won the Gallagher Premiership with Bath
‘But the city was really nice. I’m glad now they’re winning things. It’s about time. I had good friends there and just for the peace of the place, I wanted them to win something. But even now with mad Bruce Craig involved, they’re only half a season away from it all being overturned again.’
On that note, and with time ticking towards opening hour at the restaurant, Auterac has to go. After leaving life on the rugby field behind, he has found a new calling.
It seems it is one which perhaps makes him even happier than his sport ever did.
