Roy Brett, chef proprietor, Ondine restaurant, Edinburgh

Roy Brett, chef proprietor of Ondine restaurant in Edinburgh has always had a passion for cooking fish.

Starting his career at the Caledonian Hotel before heading to London to work with Mark Hix and Rick Stein, he says he learnt the importance of keeping food simple.

Opening Ondine six years ago, Roy now enjoys passing on his knowledge of seafood to his young chefs and his customers. The Staff Canteen spoke to him about why he thinks Scottish produce is the best, why fish is so ‘unforgiving’ and his favourite ingredients.

You’ve enjoyed cooking fish from a young age, what is it about seafood that you are drawn to?

When you get a wild bass in your hands, it's super fresh. It’s glistening and the eyes are spanking I just think it’s beautiful and I’m lucky to handle it. Fish is so unforgiving, there is a fine line between it being over and undercooked. You can’t make mistakes with fish, the beauty of it is once you start to understand it, it’s such a great product to work with. I’m fascinated by fish, seeing it come in fresh and getting my young cooks to handle it every day.

They learn the characteristics so they know a seabass has a high rib cage and they know how to deal with monk fish membrane. I love that all my guys fillet the fish in the restaurant because so many places get their fish already filleted, or the fresh summer squid we get that’s so thin but fries up beautifully and our guys prepare it from scratch. Fish is a more expensive restaurant to run because it doesn’t have a shelf life like meat but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

How did you get into the industry?

My family have always cooked, Sunday’s were always a special day where everyone would come together and eat around the table. My father was a fisherman and he used to take me fishing at a young age, whatever we caught we would eat so I’ve always had a connection to food from a young age. When it was time to leave school and choose a profession, I was lucky enough to get an apprenticeship at the Caledonian Hotel with Alan Hill. I just remember they used everything from the whole vegetables right down to the peelings. It struck a chord, it was refreshing to see how really responsible kitchen management worked.

What was it like to work with Rick Stein and then Mark Hix?

It was amazing. For me they are the two best chefs in Britain and what I loved was their food was unashamedly simple but absolutely perfect. They knew what to put on the plate and they were comfortable enough to believe that what they put on the plate was what people wanted to eat. Using foam guns, cooking with tweezers – it has a place but certainly not in my kitchen or any of the kitchens I ever worked in. Mark and Rick are real characters. Rick always referred to the ‘point of the dish’ so why are you cooking it in the first place? And he never disappointed – I was really lucky to work with both of them.

Their style obviously made an impression, does it still influence your cooking to date?

Absolutely! I’ve just come back from Cannes, I was there for a 50th birthday and I cooked fruits of the sea for forty people. When you go down to the market and get the fish, the oysters and the shells – the produce is so good, so clean and simple but so memorable. My influences come from travel, the grounding that I got from Mark and Rick, and I learnt it’s equally important to know what not to do as well as what to do – that’s something I share with my team today. I’m lucky to have real, young talent working around me.

If you served Mark and Rick in your restaurant do you think they would be happy with your dishes and see their influence behind them?

They would definitely tell me if they weren’t happy! They are very honest and they are pure in their cooking.

You talk about using fresh, local produce – are you particularly keen to champion Scottish products?

Everybody loves Scottish produce and everybody talks about our whisky, langoustine, the berry season – there’s a lot to be proud of. When you travel the country and you look at what really excites people, you look at the produce we have in Scotland and we are more in tune now with what we have as a valuable product and how to look after it responsibly.

I think the husbandry that happens now from sea farms to land farms is remarkable. More Scottish restaurants are serving Scottish produce, it might sound a bit silly but you only need to go back a few years to when people weren’t so in tune to what we really have. It’s great to see the excitement from chefs who come from overseas when they see the creatures in the shells and experience the natural larder that we have. It is better than anybody else’s and I don’t care what anyone else says – it is!

Do you have a favourite ingredient you like to work with?

Scallops, which come from the Ethical Shellfish Company on Mull. They are really fresh, clean and they arrive alive – we go through so many! Also, we had Terry Laybourne, from 21 Hospitality Group, and his team come up from Newcastle. I served them langoustine that were landed in Sky that morning, simply boiled in salted water and served on ice, you just need to go on twitter to see the reaction. Fruits of the sea - when you see them cooked like that - it’s so honest and they look beautiful. It’s primal as well, you’re engaged with your hands and socially people get engaged at the table because you're peeling the prawns, drinking wine