By 1971 Floyd had acquired three restaurants in
Bristol: Floyd's Bistro in Princess Victoria Street in
Clifton, Floyd's Restaurant in Alma Vale Road and Keith Floyd's Restaurant in Chandos Road,
Redland. All three restaurants had financial problems. Floyd sold the restaurants and the rights to the name "Floyd's Restaurant" and moved to the
south of France, where again he opened a restaurant in
L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the
Vaucluse. After this again ended in financial problems, he moved back to
Britain. With the help of loans from friends, he opened another restaurant, again in Chandos Road, Bristol. The restaurant in Chandos Road was frequented by actors and others connected with television. Floyd's first cookery book, ''Floyd's Food
, published before he became a TV celebrity, had an introduction written by Leonard Rossiter, star of British TV sitcoms Rising Damp and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin''. Floyd's first foray into the world of show business was as a radio chef on
Radio West, an independent commercial radio station in Bristol. TV producer David Pritchard then offered him a slot on BBC West regional magazine show
RPM, presented by Andy Batten Foster. That led, in 1984, to his being offered his first BBC TV series
Floyd on Fish, which started his rapid rise to national popularity. Floyd never described himself as a chef since he was untrained. He became well known for cooking with a glass of wine in one hand, often in unusual locations such as a fishing boat in rough seas. He was regarded as a pioneer of taking cooking programmes out of the studio. The chef went on to present his shows from around the world, cooking on location in his unique chaotic style. He bought and ran the Maltsters Arms in
Tuckenhay,
Devon in the late 1980s. When Floyd was not running the kitchen, chefs included
Jean-Christophe Novelli. He was more often seen at the bar than in the kitchen. The failure of the Maltsters led to his bankruptcy. Despite TV success, Floyd continued to have financial problems and personal conflicts. He was declared bankrupt in 1996. The
Daily Mirror claims that this happened after he personally guaranteed an order for £36,000 of drinks. He lived in
Kinsale,
County Cork, Ireland for a time in the mid-1990s. In April 2008 he travelled to
Singapore and
Thailand in pursuit of new business ventures in
Southeast Asia. Until his death he was actively involved in his restaurant Floyd's Brasserie, located at the Burasari Resort on the popular Thai island of
Phuket. Floyd admitted away from the cameras that he often drank too much out of loneliness. It later emerged that Floyd had collapsed and died a few hours before the broadcast. In 2020, Floyd was the subject of 'Keith Floyd's Bristol', a documentary presented by Xander Brett. It was produced by
Burst Radio, later broadcast on
BBC Radio Bristol to mark eleven years since his death.
Other television work He was the subject of
This Is Your Life in 1991 when he was surprised by
Michael Aspel in
The Brazen Head pub in Dublin. Floyd can also be seen in a number of episodes of the children's television series
Balamory, as a chef in Suzie Sweet's "Suzie's Cooking" song. In 2006, he also appeared on the ITV show ''
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway'', demonstrating to the pair how to bake a cake for their Ant vs Dec challenge of cake decorating, resulting in
Dec (Donnelly) winning the challenge. ==Honours==