IF you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen is a pretty tempting offer with the temperature at a constant 38 degrees and the pressure on to deliver meals of a high standard and on time to a restaurant full of hungry customers.

Yet there are no Gordon Ramsay-style tantrums in the kitchen at the Olive Press in Nelson Square, Bolton. The chaos here, it seems, is pretty organised.

Karl Popple, aged 31, who has worked at the restaurant since it opened in October, 2005, runs a calm ship in spite of the obvious stresses.

Originally from Huddersfield, Karl could have been a mechanic or a builder, but his decision to work in the catering trade proved to be the right one when he became head chef at the Cow and Calf in Ilkley at the age of 19.

He also worked at the Last Drop and Egerton House, before becoming a sous chef at the Olive Press, and then head chef.

He said: "It's a brilliant atmosphere. Every day is different. Last night was so busy I was even helping out waiting on tables.

"In some places, there's an us and them' attitude between kitchen and front of house, but here it's everyone together."

On a busy night, such as tonight, there are six chefs, two kitchen porters and 14 staff working the floor of the restaurant, which can seat 130 people.

It is Saturday night and I am in chef's whites (don't worry, I didn't actually do any cooking) at the Olive Press, one of Paul Heathcote's 12 restaurants - to see the team in action.

It is just after 6pm and restaurant manager Paul Roberts is leading the team briefing.

"It's going to be busy, busy, busy - turnover-tastic," he says, pointing out projected "rush-hour" times of 7.30pm and 8.30pm, giving everyone their specific tasks and running through the specials menu.

Tonight they include a Lancashire pizza consisting of local potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, black pudding, cheese and fried egg.

Karl - who admits that he rates F-Word presenter Gordon Ramsay as a chef but does not shout and swear like him -stresses that all supplies for the menu, which changes every three to four months, are sourced locally, with meat, fish and vegetables all being brought in on a daily basis.

He said: "The big sellers are the seafood casserole, the penne chicken and the pizzas. My personal favourite is the chargrilled lamb chop with roasted butternut squash, peas and rocket. That's the one I would order if I was eating. It's a good seller as well."

Karl has tried everything on the menu, but the one ingredient he doesn't like is olives.

"We probably use about 30 kilos of olives a week - alongside seven or eight kilos of rocket a day - and I do taste them, but I really don't like them."

Orders soon come trickling in and by 7pm things are hotting up - literally.

"It's 38 degrees in here. It's very hot, but you do get used to it," said Karl, who shouts out the orders as they come through to the kitchen by computer.

No-one appears to be listening as he calmly runs through table 11's request: "Starters - one garlic bread, one garlic bread with tomato and rosemary, one lamb meat balls, one squid, one tuna burger, one tuna burger no fennel and one chicken liver paté.

"Mains - one penne chicken, one seafood risotto, one Italian ham pizza, one salmon and mozzarella macaroni, one mushroom pizza, one rump steak well done and one veal escalope." Amazingly though, no-one asks him to repeat anything and the order is calmly prepared alongside those of several other tables.

At 7.30pm, the orders are whipping through and the two lads doing the washing up are really under the cosh.

Junior sous chef Claire Lonsdale, preparing pizzas and garlic breads, is also hard at work.

"The oven is on at between 380 and 400 degrees and the breads are literally only in there for about two minutes," said Claire, who has been at the restaurant since it opened.

There is only room to cook nine at once, but Claire is cheerfully coping magnificently with what seems to me to be an incessant workload.

There are about 100 people in the restaurant now and a garlic bread with cheese goes to the wrong table, but the mistake is soon rectified with very little fuss.

Someone orders duck and gets veal, but Karl keeps his temper, simply asking: "How did that happen? Duck sounds nothing like veal."

Later he explains: "People may make mistakes and we may lose our tempers from time to time but at the end of the day you have to address the reasons why people are making mistakes.

"It never becomes personal. The worst thing to do is to make a mistake and not learn from it.

"Some of the guys here are 16 years old and this is their first job. I have been in the same position and they are better off being in this environment, which will make them better chefs at the end of the day. If they show enthusiasm, I will spend my time with them.

"It might start getting a bit hairy now and these guys will really start to get hammered," he adds.

It's 8.20pm, the Valpolicella risotto is going down a treat and 16-year-old apprentice chef Karl Ginnever is being kept busy making salads, patés and club sandwiches.

The 15 litres of yellow pepper soup prepared earlier are also going well, as is the crispy duck legs with soft blue cheese polenta, crisp pancetta and red wine and, surprisingly to me, the chips.

Busiest of all, surely, is Joe Devine, who joined the Olive Press after working making false teeth. After just eight months, he is chef-de-partie.

"I have a lot of time for Joe. I think he's going to get somewhere and he's got a good future with Heathcote's," Karl said.

Joe, who has cooked virtually all the meat dishes tonight, said: "It's great, definitely much better than making teeth!"

By the end of the night - well after 12.30pm - as two Belgian guys come to the counter insisting that Karl "must be Italian", the team has served 217 people.

Karl said: "We've had a couple of little problems, but nothing much. We've rectified those and offered complementary desserts, but I'll take that from an evening. All in, it's gone pretty well."

Some of the team stay back for a late drink, while others, like myself - and I have spent a mere three hours in the kitchen - make their way home, shattered. Some will be back on duty by lunchtime.

Next time I'm perusing the restaurant menu, my thoughts will be with those sweating it out in the kitchen.

Pressed for time

A typical day for Olive Press head chef Karl Popple, pictured, starts at 10am.

Most days he gets a one-and-a-half hour break - and he works through until service stops at about 11pm, or later at weekends.

Some days, he only sees his nine-month-old son, Harvey, for an hour.