Mum is constantly a huge inspiration to me in cooking and as a person – her ethos. I’ve always been a big fan of sausages – really good herby pork ones – with mustard and lots of buttery mash, or crushed swede, with potato and black pepper through it. I have such great memories of the food from my childhood: corned beef sandwiches in warm rolls, with loads of English mustard, watching the Pink Panther. And for dessert, I love eggy creamy things - so I’d make a lemon tart or a creme brulee.
To drink we’d have a can of Lilt – it’s what I always had as a kid with my chips: the fruity sweet flavour is such a good memory. No other tidbits, simple stuff done well is the best. We’d make our own tartar sauce and have plenty of malt vinegar. We’d have whiting, which is wonderful, or plaice, a good-quality British fish. Their fish and chips were perfect – triple-cooked chips, crispy and fluffy in the middle, and the fish, beautifully fresh. It’s something I always strive for in my restaurant. It’s was my first experience of good customer service: generosity is so crucial in hospitality that little thing meant people would go back again and again, and it cost the place so little to do. The best thing as a kid in the queue was when they gave you a chip on a chip fork. I would always go with my mum and my brother, from the age of five or six. It was near my house, and every Saturday lunchtime there would be queues around the corner. That sort of honest food is something I strive for in my own cuisine.įor my main, I’d have fish and chips from Danny Dyke’s in Gloucester, cooked by the same people who did it when I was a little kid. Christmas was always amazing, but Boxing Day was even better – leftover roast turkey, a proper ploughman’s lunch, bubble and squeak … The combination of meat and pickles is very rustic and wholesome, whether it’s leftovers or doing the whole process yourself. My dream starter is cold meats and pickles.
We’d have spent the day wandering around Whitstable – there’s such great food and wonderful furniture shops – then walking on the beach with the dogs, late afternoon. Summer by the seaside is wonderful, but my favourite is wintertime on a beach, wrapped up warm with a big coat on.
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