lets me run everything now, but whenever he comes into the kitchen he is tasting everything, he will always give you input into a dish, what he thinks, what you could tweak, whether he likes it as it is, and again at different times of the year what he would like to see coming.
Richard has done Great British Menu, is that something you would be interested in doing?
I’m not so sure if it is for me - we’ll let Richard do that for a little while longer! I’ve done bits and pieces here with photo shoots and a little bit of camera work but I like to have a wall between me and everyone else. We do have private rooms though and it’s something I had to get used to very quickly.
Have you learnt to enjoy it?
Oh it’s brilliant now, I love it, sometimes you get some great people in and you could spend an hour in the room just talking to them. When people are interested in food it makes it much easier.
How important is training and development in your kitchen?
It is essential really to train the guys. We buy most of our meat on bone so we can dry age it ourselves, but it needs to be broken down, and I think a lot of places don’t necessarily do it anymore, it is easier to buy it portioned and vacuum packed, and a lot of the lads when they come here they haven’t really seen a whole lamb before.
You have to train them in all the ways, it is interesting for them, people get bored very easily I find so for young chefs we need to keep them interested. For young chefs when they see a whole lamb coming in the door, I think they enjoy figuring out and learning how to break it down, the different bits and pieces and where they come from, the different cuts of meat, so they all know what cut is what.
Again with fish it is the same, to fillet a fish properly and portion it properly so they are not wasting any of the fish itself, they need to maximise as much portions as they can out of each fish because it all costs money at the end of the day.
You have had a lot of different experiences, is it nice for you to give that back to the young chefs who are coming in today?
It is yeah, we get to bring in a lot of fusion so what I’ve learnt in Sydney and over in South America. We have a lot of different dishes, it is a mixture of everything, these guys haven’t seen some of the stuff and for them to make simple little dressings which they would never usually see in London, unless they went to a specific Thai restaurant or a Cantonese, whatever it may be, is great.
Richard is very into it and he has travelled the world himself, he loves that kind of food, so it works for us here - we can have a traditional English pie on the menu beside a beautiful Thai crab salad or a nice Asian broth.
The menu suggests game is a speciality for you?
Once game season hits we go heavy on game here. We have a few different birds on the menu, venison, game pies and we might run a roasted grouse. One of Richard’s signature dishes is grouse pie, for two people carved in the room - it is nice to be able to do dishes that Richard used to do in different restaurants, when he was at Lindsay House he used to have these grouse pies on the menu, and people still know him for that; they are big sellers.
It is Richard’s name on the door but he showed me what to do, he taught me how to make it, and people just keep coming.
Whilst you have been there, have there been any particularly big challenges that you have had to get over?
I would say getting used to dealing with the private rooms, private dining is a massive part of what we do here, we have four private rooms and for me that was one of the main things to get used to. In November and December the rooms are fully booked every day, for me it was hard work but I loved it, it was really good. It took time to get used to doing private rooms on top of a full restaurant, it was very challenging, but it was very rewarding, we had a great year.
We run the cookery school here in Mayfair which was another challenge that I had never done before. We are not open for Saturday lunches, but once a month we have the cookery school. It’s another challenge, people coming into the kitchen and you actually have to teach them from scratch what to do and try to entertain them for three or four hours on your own. The first one I was a bit nervous I won’t lie.
What are looking to gain from the operation, in terms of yourself and the business?
For me, it is more about running the business now. Richard very much wants everyone involved, so myself and the general manager, we have to know our figures and know what is going on. Richard loves teaching you and making sure you know what is going on, so in the future if we ever did get our own restaurants we would know what to expect, we would know what to do.
What about the guides, such as Michelin, would you like a star?
Everybody says no and I do too, it’s a nice recognition but it wouldn’t be something that I would be hunting down you know, I like the fact that here we get to serve very good, rustic food in a lovely setting at the restaurant, but again it is all about making the people happy and that they are enjoying themselves, and if we are not then we are doing something wrong.
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