So what’s on the menu today Henry?
I’ve made sure it’s super seasonal, for me the most important thing about cooking at the moment is about seasonality and making sure you’re buying British and making sure you know who you are buying it from.
The pork I’m using is pork ribeye sourced from Dingley Dell, which I think is the best pork farm in the UK, based on the east coast of Suffolk. The quality is untouchable and I know exactly where it’s come from. For me that’s one of the most important things about cooking. We need to make sure we aren’t importing meat – it needs to be grown here not flown here. That is one of the best ways to reduce your impact on the environment when it comes to your personal consumption.Â
Henry’s roasted pork ribeye with pickled peppers, preserved lemon and rosemary
Menu:
- Cornish mackerel with pink grapefruit and chilly salsa
- Roasted pork ribeye with pickled peppers, preserved lemon and rosemary
- Barbecue cauliflower marinated in sumac and zaatarÂ
It’s a really nice seasonal menu and I’m excited to get it out to people in the next few hours – although the cauliflower is going to be delicious it was super expensive! Recently the price of cauliflower has spiked due to a mass shortage across the UK. Extreme weather has caused massive financial loss for farmers. It’s only temporary but yeah I had to pay out for the cauliflower!
Where do you mainly source your produce from?
Most of my produce is coming from Cornwall right now. Farming is still such an important industry there and some of the top produce in the UK is from Cornwall. Philip Warren butchers are the best of best when it comes to butchers out there. They’re based in Launceston and have been about since the 1800’s, producing some of the best high-end beef you could ever wish for in the UK!
Farming is still such an important industry [in Cornwall] and some of the top produce from the UK is from there
Kernow Sashimi are on the same level with fish, they use small boats and static gear and lines. They provide some of the best lobster and crab in a sustainable way. For vegetables I also source from Cornwall. Good Earth Growers supply some of finest artisan produce. Making sure I have a sustainable, fair supply chain is so important for my job to be as guilt free as possible.
Henry Freestone’s asparagus, parmesan and aioli
Henry’s pigs and blankets with cranberry ketchup
Torched mackerel broth
So you were head chef at Crispin E1 how did you get there?
I have been cooking professionally for ten years now and I when I got offered the chance to head up the restaurant I wasn’t going to turn it down. It was the perfect opportunity to write a small menu every week and go ‘this is what I want to cook and you’re going to come and eat my food’. It’s all about getting the best ingredients and doing fuck all to them. People more often than not over-complicate food in London. You don’t need 50 ingredients to make something taste good.Â
You don’t need 50 ingredients to make something taste good
If you put an amazing piece of sourdough down with natural culture butter that’s going to be delicious. Saying this though, simple-done-well isn’t easy, you need confidence in your cooking to say ‘I’m going to put three things on a plate and they’re all going to delicious and work perfectly together.’
What is it like creating a weekly menu?
A lot of chefs don’t have to deal with the stress and pressure of creating a great menu weekly but this was a challenge that suited my style of cooking. A highlight was most definitely getting a message from Ramsay’s chef saying ‘one of my head chefs has been talking about you’, that was pretty crazy as Gordon is someone I highly respect both on and off screen.
Braised beef and roaster portobello mushrooms
Heritage tomatoes with a good glug of olive oil
King prawns and aioli
Admittedly creating a weekly menu can be fucking stressful especially for a London crowd, it creates a lot more pressure on you on to deliver and be creative at the same time. I try to not look at reviews but let’s just say I knew when some weeks were stronger than other, sometimes reading reviews can be heartbreaking.
 When someone comes to you saying that your pasta dish was the best pasta dishes they have ever eaten, that where the payoff lies. Satisfying just that one person makes it all worthwhile even though there is blood, sweat and tears in the kitchen.
Creating a weekly menu can be fucking stressful especially for a London crowd
London kitchens, what are the worst things you have seen over the years?
The drug abuse in the kitchen is real, the problem with chefs in this country is that there are very few of them who cook because they actually want to cook and that’s a big reason for the drug abuse. A lot of people get into kitchens because they think they can’t do anything else and I have seen that in so many people across different kitchens, they don’t want to be there and that is where the drug abuse hits hard.
I love cooking but sometimes when you work with people around you who have arrogance and try to treat you like shit it’s really difficult. The culture is to break people’s bollocks because that’s how they think people learn and most of the time you are never going to learn like that. I got locked in a freezer when I was at the Hilton aged 17 I was fucking freezing but I knew I wasn’t going to die so I sat in there for 15 minutes and just ate ice cream, that was my last day there.
You have to take some serious shit to get to the point where you can create your own menus, I highly doubt things will ever change in London kitchens. It’s one of those things where cooking is what you make it and there is whole new breed of young London chefs breaking through at restaurants like Le Van, Leroy and Kiln and those chefs have this incredible love for food and that is what is pushing the London food scene. At the same time though there are too many mediocre restaurants everywhere in London.
It’s 30 degree heat today and we are in trailer in South London, how do you think environment effects cooking?
The main thing for me at the moment is I could go through the motions that every London chef does or do my own thing. I want to ensure the food is accessible for as many people as possible and that a huge issue we face in the city is making good food accessible for all everyone not just the elite. Stood here in a trailer off Peckham High Street I couldn’t be happy about serving this food to anyone and everyone today, no exclusivity today for a change.
I want to ensure the food is accessible for as many people as possible
How do you think London restaurant could change for the betters?
It is becoming a lot more apparent amongst the youth that people don’t want shit food in front of them anymore, young people no matter who they may be are looking for good food. If we can make good food more accessible then the quality is going to get better which it already is. Young people now don’t look for big portion size they look for something that isn’t too big and that is tasty –there is a new breed of food lover and I hate you use the term ‘foodie’ but pretty much every single young person I know is now in to food. This is not how it used to be at all, it is a really promising change and there are many reasons for this, instagram being one of main drivers behind this.
People need to drop this stigma around good food and restaurants, personally I love oysters and go to oyster bars as much as possible when I have time off but people looks at me and judge me for sitting there in my tracksuit downing oysters. These could be the very same people I’ve served a beautiful plate of food to, the snobbery needs to stop and it is changing which is fantastic. There need to be more people in tracksuits sitting down in London’s finest restaurants as a statement against these elites in their suits and dolled up one night stands. That’s my rant over!
