restaurant?
I oversee everything from the bistro upstairs where we do afternoon tea and dishes from Spain, France and Italy, and then downstairs where we’ve got the main restaurant. So I’ll oversee all that. I’m in
from half eight in the morning making sure all the produce is great quality, then I’ll check that we’ve got everything ready for lunch service . Also myself and my sous chef are developing dishes all the time. I’m more of a hands on chef and I’m in the kitchen five or six days a week from nine till eleven. I love it; it’s what I get a buzz out of.
What did you learn from some of the great chefs you’ve worked for in your career?
Andrew Fairlie taught me about finesse. He made me appreciate and respect ingredients, especially the home grown Scottish ingredients like the fish and shellfish, wild mushrooms and wild game. He was always saying to me, take your time and respect the produce, and that has always stuck in my mind. The late David Dempsey, over the three years I worked for him, broke me down and built me back up to be a good chef. Then obviously Gordon taught me a lot as well. Then with Angela, I moved from fine dining to a more casual concept at York and Albany , where we both created dishes based on local and seasonal ingredients, so that was a kind of balance that I probably needed to have.
What kind of food were you cooking for the Beckhams?
When I first started David had just come back from LA so he was a bit homesick and he just wanted lots of traditional English food – steak, shepherd’s pie, lasagne, Sunday roasts etc. Then he started training for Arsenal and I started cooking nutritional food for him, so healthy breakfasts and so on and also cooking for Victoria which was very health conscious as well.
What’s it like working for someone like Jason with a large global empire?
It’s great. Working for some of these big chefs, you sometimes never see them for six months at a time but Jason phones me every week asking me how the business is going, so he’s very hands on. He comes over every couple of months which is great; he’ll spend about a week in the kitchen and we both work on new dishes. It’s great for the local guys as well to see a Michelin-star chef come and work in the kitchen with them and do service and stuff.
What is the future for you, for Pollen and for Jason Atherton operations in South East Asia in general?
I’d like to open my own place at some point in the future but working with Jason is great. He leaves it up to me so it’s kind of like running your own place anyway. The main goal for me and the team is to get into Asia’s Fifty Best [Restaurant list] next year. We’ve got no Michelin star system here but I think the 50 Best is achievable because we’ve got the products and the produce so it’s just about getting our heads down and seeing what happens.
Colin's recipe for Country Duck with Edible Soil.
Colin's recipe for White Gazpacho with Cucumber, Grapes and Almonds
