Luke Tipping, Simpsons, Birmingham

Luke Tipping is the executive chef and recently promoted director of Simpsons restaurant, a Michelin starred restaurant with rooms in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Luke describes the restaurant’s French cuisine as natural, seasonal and free flowing, using nothing in his menu that is not in season. The restaurant also has three AA rosettes. Luke’s father was a chef and he grew up in and around restaurants. Besides a few stages in Chicago, Lyon and Holland, his career has mostly been focused in Birmingham, unusual when many of his peers often move to London after college. His career began with a placement in a kitchen arranged for him by his father and he supplemented this with a course at Halesowen catering college. He met the chef and restaurateur Andreas Antona while both worked at the renowned Plough and Barrow restaurant in Birmingham, which he started at in 1984. After long careers there, they both left the restaurant and Andreas set up Simpsons in Kenilworth, with Luke joining him. The restaurant won a Michelin star in 1999 and moved to Edgbaston in 2004, retaining its star ever since. He was awarded a professorship in Culinary Arts in 2010 by University College Birmingham. First and foremost Luke wonderful to come and see you in Birmingham. Welcome. Perhaps we can start by you outlining your role here at Simpsons, number in your team, your responsibilities, number of covers that type of thing, general overview of Simpsons. Well my role is executive chef. I've recently been made a director which is great"¦. Congratulations. "¦through my long service here at Simpsons. So you didn't get the carriage clock then Luke, you got a directorship? Yeah, which is probably worth a bit more to me in the long term, but yes so I'm more "Chef" then "Chef Director". I'm still very hands on in the kitchen, over seeing, the kitchen, I like moving round and I tend to operate the sauce section, which keeps my hand in, I'm certainly not one for sitting in the office, well not just yet!!! Simpson's has a team of 14 chefs in the brigade, that's includes some part timers, which are from the local colleges. So my role then, even though I'm predominantly in the kitchen, has been extended to look after the whole operation, supporting the great team we've got here at the Simpsons . So you look after front of house as well? We've got a great restaurant manager and an office team I'm quite interactive, with them and of course with the customers. Through my length of time here at Simpsons, I know what Andreas wants from the business and hopefully I can support the restaurant manager, Tony and the team. Luke, I've always understood where Simpsons was located, I just hadn't quite got my head round possibly everything that was here. Just talk us through the operation. You've got a cookery school, the number of covers you do, that type of thing. We've got a cookery school or a demonstration school, which ever you prefer There's no actual cookers in there, but we're trying to reintroduce a hands on approach, so making pasta and things like that, tarts for desserts feature at the demonstartions. So that takes up the weekend for us"¦ Who is your market for that? Is it ladies that lunch ? Not really it's all sorts. It's very voucher orientated, It presents an opportunity for someone who's into food to have a great present or receive a great present. You could come for a meal, or perhaps buy them a book ? So it's very much led by people who've been to the Simpsons, and think, "˜Oh that's a brilliant idea we'll give it to someone as a present.' We've had people who've have been given a voucher for a wedding present. So it's not marketed at one single market. We also have so many young guys coming now, just groups of a couple of lads coming to the demonstrations, which is great to see I think the way food is going nowadays people they all want to part of that. People use the demonstration, as part of a day at Simpsons, they can come round, they have a show around the operation, they can go in the kitchen, have a chat with the chefs as they work, whatever. They can see what we do and just to see how we operate. The dems also involve wine tastings, and everyone goes away a little bit merrier than when they started. So it's all great fun really. Let's talk about the food here at Simpsons. It's kind of iconic in Birmingham, the name Simpsons, and as you say you've been here in this location 15 years? Well no not quite we've been running as Simpsons for about 17 I think now. We've been here"¦this is into our seventh year, we were previously at Kenilworth for ten years before that. So talk us through the food style how has that evolved and where would you say you are today with your food? I know no one likes to pigeonhole their food but how would you describe your food style? I suppose we're very influenced by current trends. I heard an interview by Liam Gallagher yesterday on Radio 2, which I thought was very apt, he said, "You know our music is"¦" I think that's amazing that Liam Gallagher's now on Radio 2. Well yeah exactly that says something doesn't it . He's obviously calmed down a bit. I thought what he said relates to us a little bit, he said, "I'd like our music to be listened to in ten years time but it could also have been listened to ten years ago," and I'd like to think our food's pretty much like that. I could really relate to what he was saying, we've obviously got a block of recipes that we've used, we look back at those and we take them forward where we can. So what he said in that Radio 2 interview I thought was pretty much what I could say for our food here in Simpsons. Give us an example of a traditional Simpsons' dish. What would you say at the moment on your menu says, "Yeah this is Simpsons?" Oh we've got"¦we do a dish, of Foie Gras and banana"¦ Really? "¦which"¦ Wow. Exactly and everyone says, "Wow, wow,". We recently went to dinner at Heston's and obviously Heston is into all this sort of old revivalising the old classics, but I found a foie gras and banana recipe in an old Larousse Gastronomique I've got which dates back to 1894, I thought, "˜Well that's got legs, I could work with that.' And it had a few other additions, truffles and things so we've sort of had it on a number of years, Glynn (Purnell) will remember foie gras and banana. It was a dish we first did back at the Kenilworth site, but it's evolved with us, and we've moved it forwards, we've worked on the banana purée and now we do it with some salted pecans. It's evolved from probably eight, nine years ago, it's been off the menu and on the menu and people, always comment "Foie gras and banana I've never heard of that"¦" Yeah absolutely. "¦but then everyone, well I think everyone loves it but that's sort of a dish that we work with but, I think now it might have reached it's pinnacle though, perhaps as far as we can take it. But sometimes that's the right thing to do isn't it? Sometimes there comes a point when"¦ You've got to know when to stop yeah. Yeah because I think chefs are continually saying, "What does it need? What does it need?" and sometimes it doesn't need anything. I think with our maturity now at Simpsons, I've worked here a long time, I think our maturity has helped to slow us down a little bit , our food here at Simpsons has got a lot simpler, even in the last two or three years, we ask ourselves what can I take away, far more than what can I add"¦ But that comes with confidence doesn't it? Exactly yes, and the confidence grows over time and we've got some great lads in the kitchen, you've just met Matt the sous chef and obviously Adam who you know. It's important we're singing off the same hymn sheet, we're going in the same direction, which, because we've been working together for so long now we support each other and we know when to stop. Let's talk a little bit about you then. So everybody knows you as chef/director of Simpsons or head chef at Simpsons, executive chef, but give us a little bit about your background, you're obviously a Birmingham lad, staunch Birmingham supporter when did it all start for you? Well it's a strange one really because I was brought up in restaurants. My father was a chef, bless him, he's no longer with us but I used to live above restaurants and my brother"¦ In Birmingham? In Birmingham yes. He was chef at the Plough and Harrow years ago The Plough and Harrow had a great reputation didn't it? It did yes...And he ran his own little restaurants around the city and so I was pretty much brought up in restaurants, I never really got to know him that well because because he was very work, work, work and he had to keep a roof over our heads and it was in the 70s when the Labour government and a three day week and miners' strike and"¦ Everyone in Birmingham was on strike. Exactly yeah and so it was very difficult time, for his restaurant, and he used to finish in the restaurant, and then go and work in a club to make ends