It has been 45 years since he has been at the Halifax hotel and restaurant. And things were quite different then – because he was the chef.
Tonight he is having a four-course meal prepared for him by head chef Garry Saunders. Four and a half decades ago, the roles would have been reversed; he was the one in the kitchen, making sure the diners were happy.
Pepe was the very first chef at Holdsworth House – or the Cavalier Country Club as it was known when it first opened its doors in 1963. Now 68 and retired, he lives in Cambridge but when we meet he is back – for the first time – at this beautiful Jacobean mansion as guest of honour at a dinner to celebrate Holdsworth House's sapphire anniversary.
"There have been lots of changes, of course," he says with just a trace of his Spanish accent.
"But some things I remember as they were. The beautiful frontage of the house is just as it was. Yes, I feel quite nostalgic coming back here."
Pepe was just 24 when he arrived in Halifax, speaking barely a word of English, to head the kitchen team.
The business was then owned by Freddie and Rita Pearson who had bought the 13th-century house to run as a private country club for which members would pay five guineas a year.
Today, Holdsworth House is owned by the late Freddie and Rita's two daughters, Kim Wynn and Gail Moss, who organised the anniversary dinner.
Opening night on April 11, 1963, was a grand affair with a fantastically lavish buffet – all of which was Pepe's creation.
"I worked a straight 83 hours to get that ready but it was worth it. We wanted it to be just perfect and it was – lobster, smoked salmon, roast beef, pork, duck, fruits, cheeses, everything you could imagine," he says.
Pepe is originally from the north of Spain, near Barcelona, and it was while working there, in the Catalonia capital, that he first heard about the Cavalier.
"I was second chef at a top four-star hotel there and one of the residents staying with us was going to work at the Cavalier. They told me they were looking for staff.
"I had always wanted to go to England and this seemed like a good opportunity," he says.
He left home at 16 to train as a chef and worked in a number of hotel kitchens Andorra, Toulouse, south-west France.
"When I came to England, I never intended to stay here. It was just for a short time but I have never gone back home permanently," he says.
Pepe recalls the early days of the Cavalier and cooking for some of the famous faces who came to stay there – including Liverpool's legendary Fab Four.
The Beatles had been playing in Bradford in 1964 and they needed a place to stay for the night, courtesy of Freddie Pearson, a friend of Stanley Corbett, the Beatles' road manager.
"I remember what they ate, of course I do," says Pepe. "The visit cocinded with John Lennon's 24th birthday on October 9.
"They had prawn cocktail, melon, turtle soup, fillet steak, monkey gland steak (a flattened fillet steak), and cold duckling," he recalls.
"And I remember specifically what Paul McCartney ate because he wanted to eat it his in room.
"We sent in smoked trout and steak Diane on a tray."
Pepe also recalls a charity football match in which the staff took on a whole team of guests and celebrities, including The Small Faces and remembers cooking for TV stars like Bernie Winters and his brother, Mike.
Pepe stayed at the Cavalier for four years before moving to Cambridge where he set up a food-processing plant, met and married his wife, Brenda, and had a son, Marcus.
"I loved being at the Cavalier," says Pepe, who is wearing his old country club tie.
"We met such interesting people from all over. And everyone was so kind in Yorkshire.
"I remember I had only been there a couple of months and it was my birthday in the June. I had dozens of cards and presents not just from staff but customers too. It bro-ught tears to my eyes.
"And Mr Pearson was like a second father to me.
"It was a lovely time – and it's good to see the place again.
"It is just as beautiful as I remember it."