Originally from Zimbabwe chef Brett Barnes has gone from gastro pubs in Leeds, to Mark Hix in London to the 19th best restaurant in the world in Sweden but has now settled in London’s Eelbrook with a casual dining restaurant that Brett says is him. Serving food that “isn’t overly fussy but is still done properly” Brett and his team offer Mediterranean food with a lot of British ingredients on a menu that changes three or four items a week.
So you moved to London in 2010 what made you decide then was the time to move?
I suppose it just came to that time. I’d been a head chef in Leeds at a couple of gastro pubs for three years already, at the time the restaurant scene wasn’t that exciting, I gather that it’s actually got a bit better since, but I just felt like I didn’t want to be a big fish in a small pond.
I’d rather try out in London where all of the best restaurants are and where people make their names.
So where are you originally from?
I’m from Zimbabwe but I went to boarding school in Lancashire, then I moved to Leeds for university, which would have been 1999. I finished uni, got a job in a bank for a year and then hated it so I thought I’d try out cooking.
When you did decide cooking was the route to go down what was the first job that you went for?
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Occasionally, some of those really cheap Chinese noodles, like 30p a packet: they’re quite good.
I do like some crap, like a kebab now and again.
I don’t know if you could say peanut butter is a guilty pleasure but I eat a lot of it, normally just out of the jar.
Top restaurants:
- Bocca Di Lupo in Soho,
- Brawn in Hackney,
- The Star Inn in Yorkshire
Favourite cookbook:
I’ve got a few hundred I’d say but favourite ones? That’s hard. Let me think of the classics: Simon Hopkinson.
I did consider going to cooking college but while I was waiting to enrol an apprentice job came up in a little bistro in Headingley which at the time was a good, busy, popular little place and the head chef had good credentials.
He used to work at the Box Tree in Ilkley which Marco Pierre White worked at back in the day; it was a good place to learn the basics. Up until that point I knew absolutely nothing – just what I learned off TV and stuff.
When did you go to work at Arbutus?
That was my first job in London, which must have been 2009/2010. At the time I had eaten there and I considered it my favourite restaurant so I emailed them seeing if they had any jobs going, came down for a trial and started working there.
How do you view your time there? Did you work quite closely with Antony Demetre?
No, because at the time they were opening the big brasserie in Covent Garden, Les Deux Salons, so he was not around as much as I thought he would have been. But it didn’t really matter because the chefs under him, Alan the head chef and the sous chefs, were all so good.
It was such a crazy working environment; I don’t feel that I missed out really by not working with Antony. I learned loads and it was a good introduction to London, a hard one, but it was good.
Is it right that you worked with Mark Hix as well?
Yeah, I was there for a while. I was at
Hix for just a bit over two years at first and then I have always kept in touch. I was their event chef for a couple of months, then when I got back from Sweden I helped out there for another three months or so before I got this job here at Eelbrook’s. I have always kept a good relationship with the Hix guys.
Did you learn quite a lot then? Would you say that Mark Hix was someone that influenced you?
Definitely, yeah. I was always very into the whole British thing, that’s what I did in Leeds anyway. All the ideas we had there all came through Mark Hix one-way or another.
He is the one who really brought back the fashion for British food. I also learned a lot more about the business-side of running a restaurant when I was at Hix. I got a lot more involved in the financials and the GP, running the kitchen and staff costs and that sort of thing.
From there, when is it that you went to Ducksoup?
Straight after Hix. The head chef job came up and then Kevin Gratton, who is the chef director at Hix now approached me saying that it had come up. He knew the owners, he said ‘I think you would be suitable, what do you think?’ So I went for it.
What is the food style there at Ducksoup?
Very different. It’s essentially a natural wine bar that does a lot of different small plates. It’s very much European/North African/Mediterranean; so it’s a completely different style of food but at the time that’s exactly what I wanted. I felt like I’d done the British thing to death so it was perfect for me really.
Was your time there your first opportunity to have a bit more control over the menu?
Yeah, it was, certainly in London. I could do that in Leeds but it’s a different kettle of fish up there. It was my first London head chef job and I had more control over the menu and running the kitchen as a whole. It was a great little experience and perfect for what I needed at the time.
What made you go over to Sweden? Who with and where did you work there?
It was in Fäviken, which is in the middle of nowhere, 600km north of Stockholm. I think at the time it was 19th ranked in the world. I’d been there for dinner and thought it was incredible; one of the best experiences I’d ever had. Just the whole thing: the food, but also the setting and the restaurant is so unique.
I felt it was time to move on from Ducksoup but I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to go to straight into a new job in London or do my own thing. so I emailed them and offered my services for free for a couple of months.
Luckily they got back to me and I ended up going there. The idea being that I’d stay six weeks then come back but then they gave me a full time position which was nice so I
