Vraic head chef Nathan Davies and his team were followed by camera crews for the second series of Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, which documents chefs and restaurants pursuing a star.
‘They followed us for a few months during the journey, visited Guernsey, came to stay with us and filmed us day-to-day, particularly in the more stressful time just before it was announced,’ he said.
‘I’ve done a fair bit of television-based stuff before, but that was more studio-based, whereas this was like a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
‘They were following us on our days off, going to the beach with the kids, and almost the whole time that they were with us they were filming.
‘It was quite full-on and not something that I’ll be leaping into doing again, but it was also a very special time for us as a restaurant and a team.’
Intense as the filming was, Mr Davies said it had left the team with something to look back on.
‘The lovely thing about this whole thing is that we’ve now got this as a memory and we can watch it back in 20 years’ time and relive it again, see what the team did, and all the hard work that went into it,’ he said.
‘It was stressful and intense, but ultimately really quite nice, and it means we get to share what we went through to pursue our goal and to show off Guernsey to the rest of the world.’
He hoped Vraic’s appearance on a global streaming platform would bring wider tourism benefits to the island, opening the door to visitors from further afield than the UK and France.
‘This is a huge thing in America, and it’s not just highlighting the restaurant. It's highlighting how we’ve used Guernsey produce and what the island looks like.
‘I would love to think that it will have a massive impact on Guernsey’s hospitality and food tourism, but also tourism in general, and show how beautiful the island is to people who have never been.’
The programme captures the restaurant’s first star, but Mr Davies said the team was already looking beyond it, recognising that some restaurants take more than a decade to win a second.
‘We’re already pretty motivated. We know that what we’re doing here is not done yet and the jump between one star and two is huge,’ he said.
‘It’s something that’s in our conversations and where we’d like to get to, but we don’t have any control over that and we can just be as good as we possibly can be.
‘We’ll spend the next few years developing and creating a bit of infrastructure, staff training and really honing our skills, and then who knows.
‘It’s not an overnight thing and we know it will be a long process, but it’s one we’re willing to dig in and work towards.’
Despite the global release, he has no plans for a screening with friends and family.
‘I’d rather go and do a bit of fishing and let everyone else watch it,’ he said.
‘We’ve already lived through it once and it’ll be great to watch with the kids, but we can’t get too hung up on it. We’ve got to keep looking forward as well.’
Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars airs on Apple TV on Friday, with new episodes released each Friday until 6 November.