Suppliers

As chefs we always seek to work with the best in produce, taking care where it has come from, with so many more people now getting on board with the sustainable and local aspect of consuming, which is a brilliant thing and also soon becoming a necessity. So it poses the question. Where do we buy our produce from? And how do we select our suppliers?

A supplier to a chef is more than someone that drops off food from the other side of a late night answerphone message. They are specialists in their produce field, aware of local seasonality with a constant line of communication with the chef. What’s good at the market, what’s starting to appear, what to avoid. We have a relationship with our suppliers and we don’t just jump into that with anybody. My suppliers are also a good source of gossip, they tell me about who’s unhappy at what restaurant, who’s struggling (not paying their bills) and job prospects!

There is a vetting process that a chef will go through with any new supplier, we want to see their produce, we need to understand their knowledge of what they are selling, we need to know frequency of arriving at our kitchen back door, are they going to be easy to work with and are they going to ensure that we get the best produce!
We don’t just jump into bed with anybody that walks through the door to supply us, were not that slutty. A supplier like the restaurant it buys for has a reputation. They come to us through recommendation, or because we have worked with them before or because they really are the absolute specialist in their trade, so its not unusual for a restaurant to have two meat suppliers, two fish, a veg supplier, a specialist product supplier, a forager, a dry product supplier, a dairy, a cheese supplier, stationary, cleaning products…..the list can be endless but ensures we can compete for the best products among them, and keep prices competitive.
I call it a relationship because we are in constant communication with our suppliers, we will receive early morning texts from the market with any problems or issues, receiving phone calls to tell us no fishing boats are going out due to poor weather conditions and we will quite honestly tell them when what they have supplied is just not good enough. It most definitely is a two-way street, if you work with them, they will work with you and make sure that you are getting the best among the other 12 or so restaurants they also supply.

For a chef the suppliers are not as close as his team but equally important and so we take our time to work with, develop that relationship and for them to gain our trust, it’s a cut throat industry and there is always someone knocking at the door saying they can do better, that said we are loyal old dogs!

My food memories

Being a chef is about so many things, being creative, providing enjoyment, mastering a craft but for me it’s the pleasure of creating a memory. Food evokes memories, a reminder of something from your past that really hits home from your childhood or creating a new memory or experience, which led me to think, what are my earliest memories of food? And how have they shaped me into a chef?
My prime memory evoking years were the 90’s between the ages of 7 and 17 for me, the years that directed and shaped my pallet (worryingly when I was recalling foods for this!) and as any sweet tooth sugar monster a lot of my clearer memories are of sweets!

I was born and raised in Brighton and my local sweet shop was called “Goachers” It was run by a woman called Ann, I always remember she had disgusting feet bursting out of once white flip flops with talons, lumps and bumps and used to be a constant talking point between me and my friends whilst in the wonderland of tooth decay. Penny sweets were a penny and were distributed from behind a glass counter top in red plastic square containers that had to be shuffled according to your pick like one of those sliding picture puzzles with one square missing. But it was the everlasting gobstoppers, the toffee crumble (sold by the quarter) and woppa bars both spearmint and cola which stick fast in my memory, the woppa’s also doubled as currency in the playground, mostly for bribing friends to fill in my filo fax, because it seemed so time consuming when there was good football matches with a tennis ball to be had.

School lunches are a vague memory to me but I do remember starting on school dinners and soon losing interest with the exception of the caramel shortbread and sticky toffee with bright yellow bird’s custard, but I soon moved onto packed lunches I think because school dinners were expensive. I always remember feeling hard done by because my friends had nice bread that was the perfect white vessel to support a delicious filling, whereas I had this massive cut “tiger bread” that was more the showstopper than the thin layer of flavour through the centre of this bread that had looked like it had been sliced with a spade, and absorbed all the moisture from inside the sandwich, tomato was the worst! Resulting in a film of sludge bread or disintegration upon tackling this tin foil wrapped beast. I always remember nick sitting opposite me with his face in a bag of salt and vinegar chipsticks, in a one handed technique that involved putting his mouth inside the bag, much like a horse with a feed bag, and chewing, inevitably resulting in sores around his broken lips, not aided by his addiction to everlasting gobstoppers from Ann and her manky feet.

Depending if you are northern or southern evening meal was called tea or dinner, I had dinner at half 6 every day and it was compulsory to sit at the pull out table that had to be laid for each meal and then disassembled afterwards. with the exception of Thursdays when we would get fish and chips on the way home from visiting my Aunty Bettys and as reward for enduring the vocabulary punishment of being made to speak the queen’s English by my uncle Arthur, the continual repetition of saying “Forty thousand feathers on a thrushes throat” with particular attention to pronouncing the “TH” (it never worked.) it was a routine in our home, Sundays were always a sausage meat casserole made using balls of sausage meat rolled in seasoned flour or Wednesdays sausage, chips and eggs. I would always leave the white because I hated the texture. and when it was liver day, I was excused of eating offal (ironically loving it present day) I was given a dinner of mash potato, beans and tuna, sounds disgusting but I urge you to give it a go! It’s surprisingly tasty. Spaghetti bolognaise was never served with the exotic garlic covered bread and always had carrots and mushrooms, the latter I would pick out and now again love, I’m seeing a pattern here! We always had a small pudding my favourite being a tin of fruit cocktail with butterscotch angel delight. I was always allowed to drink the syrup decanted from the tin and placed in a tumbler. Although it would be a travesty to forget the still semi frozen Victoria sponge cake with strawberry jam and cream centre or the simplicity of a slice of brick vanilla ice cream in blue cardboard!

To this day I haven’t been able to replicate that sausage casserole but I’m now on a personal mission to recreate this Sunday delight for my grandad, and who knows I may even open a tin of fruit cocktail and whip up some angel delight!