The watery reaches of Buckinghamshire, beloved of bankers and 1980s celebrities, have been subject to so much flooding in recent winters that posh new houses are built to float. Though the future of this countryside is uncertain, the desire for pubs in a town like Marlow remains and Tom Kerridge owns three on the high street: the Hand & Flowers (two Michelin stars, Cornish “tin mine” tart on the menu); the Coach (one Michelin star, turbot scotch egg); and the Butcher’s Tap and Grill, with a sister pub in London’s Chelsea, which is “basically lumps of meat”, as Kerridge puts it. The Butcher has a real butcher’s in the bar area complete with tangy aromas. Men in woollen coats pop in to buy grass-fed bavette steaks and Blur’s The End plays over the sound system. Kerridge is striding down Marlow High Street on a mobile phone, deep in business – then he swings in.
His sweatshirt is covered in mock heavy-metal insignia, running up and down the sleeves like tattoos: a snake on a crucifix, a skeleton-like Iron Maiden’s Eddie. In another life the nation’s most down-to-earth chef would have been in a band. He and his wife, the sculptor Beth Cullen, lived in Camden at the height of the Britpop era: their eight-year-old son Acey (Anglo Saxon for first born) was originally going to be called Jarvis until they realised it didn’t sound great in Cullen’s Stoke-on-Trent accent. Before Britpop, he was a West Country raver. At school he hung out with the bad boys but kept his nose clean: “I was attracted by the naughty boy but I wasn’t a troublemaker. I like hanging around chaos.” Mainstream education didn’t agree with him, and when he won Celebrity Mastermind in 2015 with his specialist subject Oasis, it was the most revision he’d done in his life.
“There is definitely a connection between musicians and chefs,” Kerridge muses. “The left-field way of life, the late-night working. Hospitality workers and musicians are the waifs and strays, people who don’t conform, trying to figure out what their world is. You’ll find a high level of addiction issues, escapism – but you’ll also find extreme, obsessive people embracing their own world. If you’re like that in a kitchen, no one thinks it’s odd. If that person walks into a nine-to-five on a trading estate in High Wycombe, they’re weird.”
Though still a big man, Kerridge is also known for losing 12 stone in five years and has been pictured proudly holding up huge pairs of his old trousers more than once. Teetotal now, he was a happy drunk, but excessive: “Huge amount of volume. There’s no way I’d have made it past 50.” Drink was an escape from the endless pressure of running businesses, he says: “Hospitality is all about giving. When you drink it’s always about you, it’s your self-indulgence.”
Kerridge refers to the old-fashioned boozers – the ones with no food – in the language of the industry, calling them “wet-led pubs”. He could talk for a day about the economic challenge of running a restaurant (vegetable oil is subject to 200% inflation; toilet roll isn’t much better) but he is evangelistic about the lasting culinary influence of the gastropub. “Such a globally eclectic, wonderful hotchpotch of flavours,” he says. “Where else could you order a Korean-spiced barbecue mackerel starter, followed by a nice lamb madras as a main, and sticky toffee pudding. There is no other kind of restaurant where you could do that, but you think nothing of it.”
He learned to cook as the elder brother in a one-parent family – his mother had two jobs. They lived at the centre of three different housing estates in Gloucester and his father moved out when he was 11 (“We weren’t exactly on family holidays together, weren’t really connected”). He died when Kerridge was 18, from multiple sclerosis. Their contact diminished as his illness worsened – “He had no idea who we were at the end” – and it is only in recent years that he’s started to imagine how it felt for his father, not to see his sons as he was dying. “As a dad now to an eight-year-old, we are learning to be father and son together because I have nothing to go on,” he says.
He established his place in the world around the same time as he lost his father, finding a terrific sense of belonging in busy kitchens. One of his early mentors was the late Gary Rhodes, for whom he was sous chef at the Square in St James’s. “My whole world now …” he begins. “Gary was one of the first crossover chefs who came to TV from a professional kitchen. The biggest thing I took from him was the simplicity of his cookery. If there isn’t a need for something to be on a plate, don’t put it on: if three ingredients are perfect, leave it alone. He did so much to put British cookery on the world stage – things that we never imagined: Michelin-star steamed suet puddings! Simple, beautiful stuff.”
Kerridge gets fired up when talking about the joy of hard work and the adrenaline junkies drawn to his particular world. “I mean, it’s just food at the end of the day – we are cooking their tea. But we have got to get it right, and the best chefs in the world buzz off that.” But he says things are changing in kitchen culture. Though he’s pretty good at keeping staff (his head chef at the Hand & Flowers, a forensic science graduate, has been with him 12 years), young people are looking for experiences, not careers, and that means they’re demanding more harmonious conditions. “Social media is an amazing thing for young hospitality workers because you can instantly see how places are operating. It used to be our kitchen against the world …”
What does he think about a less positive side of social media, the catastrophic power of the one-star restaurant review?
Kerridge hasn’t looked at a review himself in 15 years. “But I have an issue with a guest who has an issue with a restaurant and doesn’t say anything and leaves. The customer is NOT always right! If they were always right, they would be three-Michelin-star chefs and owners of five-star hotels. And they’re not.”
Tom’s Easter menu:
Chargrilled sprouting broccoli with romesco sauce, corra linn cheese, lemon and parsley
Romesco hails from Tarragona in Spain and it is a beautiful, punchy tomato-based sauce that really lifts a dish, be it meat, fish or vegetables. There are a few ingredients to this dish, the effort is more than justified in the reward when you eat it. The lemon and parsley crumb adds a crunch and lightness to it – so be generous with it.
Serves 4 as a starter
tender stem broccoli 300g
olive oil 75ml, plus 2 tbsp for serving
sea salt flakes
corra linn cheese 100g
For the lemon and parsley crumb
olive oil 4 tbsp
panko breadcrumbs 100g
thyme 2 tsp, leaves picked from the stalk
parsley 2 tsp, chopped
lemon zest of ½
For the romesco sauce
blanched almonds 400g
jarred roasted red peppers 400g, drained
garlic 2 cloves
sherry vinegar 50ml
smoked paprika 2 tsp
fine salt 1 tsp
olive oil 120ml
To make the romesco sauce, toast the almonds in a dry pan for 4-5 minutes until nicely golden. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Place the drained peppers in a blender with the almonds, garlic, vinegar, smoked paprika and salt. Blend to a coarse paste while adding the olive oil. Make sure you keep some coarse consistency and not blend too smooth.
To make the lemon and parsley crumb, heat the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and bring to a medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and stir until they turn golden brown all over.
Add the picked thyme leaves and chopped parsley, stir, then remove from the heat and chill completely. Add the lemon zest and mix thoroughly.
Toss the broccoli in 75ml of olive oil. Preheat a griddle pan on the stove to a high heat. Add the broccoli to the griddle pan and cook for 2 minutes, then turn over and cook for further 1 minute. Remove from the pan and season all over with the sea salt flakes.
Spoon a generous amount of romesco on to each plate and, with the back of a tablespoon, press down on it creating a large circle. Place the charred broccoli on top.
Top with the lemon and parsley crumb. Finely grate or shave the berkswell cheese over the crumb and drizzle the plate with olive oil.
Ale-braised shoulder of lamb
Nothing shouts Easter more loudly than a braised shoulder of lamb. Cooked for hours and gently rested so the meat falls away from the bone, each fork dripping in the rich gravy infused with rosemary, garlic, bay leaf and thyme. The heady scent of roasted lamb will fill the house in the most glorious way and it really is a fabulous table centrepiece to celebrate the start of spring.
Serves 4
lamb shoulder on the bone 1.5-1.8kg
olive oil 90ml
rosemary sprigs 4, leaves picked
garlic 5 cloves, crushed
carrots 4, peeled and roughly chopped
onions 2, peeled and roughly chopped
thyme sprigs 5
bay leaves 3
garlic 1 bulb, cut in 2 horizontally
IPA 750ml
lamb stock 1 litre
plain flour 1½ tbsp
Preheat the oven to 140C fan/gas mark 3. With a small knife, make slits in the top of the lamb all over the surface. Rub with 30ml of the olive oil, then the rosemary and the crushed garlic, and set aside for 1 hour.
Heat a dish large enough to hold the lamb over a medium heat. Add another 30ml of the olive oil and brown the lamb, then remove and set aside.
Add the last 30ml of olive oil, carrot, onion, thyme, bay leaves and the garlic bulb to the same pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes until the vegetables are browned.
Put the lamb back in the pan and pour in the ale and lamb stock. Cover the pan with tin foil or a lid and cook in the oven for 3½ hours, until tender. To test if cooked, the shoulder bone when twisted should come away easily.
Remove from the oven and place the lamb on a resting plate and cover loosely with foil. Skim off the fat from the pan, then strain the liquor through a sieve.
Return the pan to a medium heat and add the flour and whisk. Add the liquor to the pan and cook until a thick gravy is achieved. Serve with the lamb, and a jersey royal salad.
Jersey royal, pea and mint salad
Serves 4
jersey royal potatoes 400g
frozen peas 150g
pickled red onions 60g
crispy shallots 30g
For the mint salad cream
eggs 2 medium
dijon mustard 3 tsp
caster sugar 2 tsp
lemon juice 1 tbsp
white wine vinegar 1 tbsp
olive oil 2 tbsp
double cream 4 tbsp
mint sauce 2 tbsp (I use Colman’s)
To make the salad cream, put the eggs into a pan of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. Cool under running water, then peel.
Cut the eggs in half, then scoop the yolk into a bowl. Whisk in the mustard, sugar, lemon juice and salt. Whisk in the oil, cream and mint sauce.
Boil the jersey royal potatoes in salted water for 8-10 minutes or until tender, then drain and cut in half. Boil the peas until cooked.
Combine the potatoes, pickled red onion, peas and mint salad cream. Top with some crispy shallots.
Griddled courgette and smoked aubergine salad with Scarborough pesto
This is a natural partner with spring lamb. The smokiness and warmth from the harissa creates a balance with the fattier shoulder cut of lamb as opposed to using the leg. I love making a bit extra as you can throw some grilled halloumi on the top the next day – it’s super versatile. The Scarborough pesto is a reference to the song Scarborough Fair, with its parsley, sage and rosemary.
Serves 4
courgettes 500g, cut into thick slices on the angle
pickled red onion 50g
parsley 3 tbsp, chopped
olive oil 4 tbsp
For the smoked aubergine puree
aubergines 3
ground cumin 1 tsp
ground coriander 1 tsp
dried oregano 1 tsp
Greek yoghurt 2 tbsp
rose harissa 2 tbsp
garlic 2 cloves, finely grated
lemon juice 1 tbsp
For the Scarborough pesto
pine nuts 100g, lightly toasted
parmesan 100g, grated
olive oil 250ml
parsley 50g, leaves removed from stalk
fresh sage 20g
rosemary 20g, leaves removed from stalk
fresh mint 20g
salt to taste
Place a griddle on the stove and grill the courgettes for 2 minutes on each side on high heat until nicely charred, then set aside.
To make the aubergine puree, roast the aubergines in the oven at 180C fan/gas mark 6 for 40 minutes until soft. Remove and place in a bowl, then cover with clingfilm. Leave for 10 minutes.
Remove the clingfilm, cut the aubergines in half, scoop out the flesh and chop it finely with a knife. Mix with the ground cumin, coriander, oregano, harissa, garlic and lemon juice. Season to taste.
To make the pesto, blend all ingredients together in a blender and season to taste. Spoon the aubergine puree on to a plate, top with the grilled courgette, then spoon the pesto over the courgette.
Top with the pickled red onion and chopped parsley, and drizzle with olive oil.
Roscoff onion and rosemary tart with pickled carrot, tarragon and hazelnut salad
I love using roscoff onions for this, because they are slightly sweeter and have a lovely pink colour, but you can use shallots just as easily. It’s a light dish with simple ingredients. The crunch of the roasted hazelnuts gives some needed texture and depth of flavour. When the weather starts warming up, it makes a cracking picnic-pleaser.
Serves 4
roscoff onions 2
olive oil 10ml
balsamic vinegar 50ml
dark brown sugar 50g
ready rolled puff pastry 1 sheet
rosemary sprigs 3, leaves removed from the stalks
egg yolk 1 large, beaten
For the pickled carrot, tarragon and hazelnut salad
carrots 3
sherry vinegar 3 tbsp
sea salt flakes to taste
honey 2 tbsp
fresh tarragon 2 tbsp, chopped
hazelnuts 100g, halved and roasted
olive oil 1 tbsp
Heat a saucepan over a medium heat. Peel and finely slice the onions, then add to the pan with the olive oil. Cook until soft and translucent. Add the balsamic vinegar and sugar. Turn the heat down and cook for about 20 minutes, until a thick jam consistency is reached. Remove from the heat and chill.
Heat the oven to 190C fan/gas mark 7. Cut a circle about 25cm in diameter from the puff pastry sheet and place the caramelised onion in the middle. Spread across the pastry, leaving a 2cm border between the ingredients and the edge. Fold the uncovered border over on to the pastry. Brush the folded-over border with the beaten egg yolk. Chop the rosemary and sprinkle over the tart.
Place it on an oven tray lined with baking parchment, and bake for 15-20 minutes until a deep golden colour is achieved.
To make the salad, peel the carrots. Shave into long ribbons using a potato peeler and place in a suitable bowl. Mix the sherry vinegar, salt and honey, add to the carrots and toss together. Leave for 30 minutes. Add the chopped tarragon, hazelnuts and olive oil, and serve.
Hot cross bread and butter pudding with Yorkshire rhubarb compote
This is really indulgent. Anyone on a diet look away now; this dessert is as irresistible as it sounds and is great if you bought too many hot cross buns and don’t want to waste them. It’s also pretty easy to make as the hot cross buns are all ready to go, so it’s essentially just making a custard and the compote. It’s a really nice spin on bread and butter pudding and one the kids will love too.
Serves 4
double cream 600ml
vanilla paste 2 tsp
orange peel of 1
egg yolks 12 medium
golden caster sugar 180g
hot cross buns 8
softened butter to butter the buns
golden raisins 100g
nutmeg 1 whole
demerara sugar 2 tbsp
For the rhubarb compote
rhubarb 500g, roughly chopped
water 100ml
golden caster sugar 250g
orange zest of 1
lemon zest of 1
vanilla paste 1 tsp
To make the rhubarb compote, place all the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat and cook until soft and the mixture has thickened. Chill completely.
Heat the cream and vanilla with the orange peel in a pan until it has come to the boil. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
Pour the hot cream on to the egg and sugar mix, whisking continuously. Set aside.
Cut the hot cross buns in half and butter each cut side. Arrange in an oven dish in 3 layers, scattering golden raisins between each layer and a grating of nutmeg on the bottom 2 layers. Pour over the cream mixture and push down into the hot cross buns. Leave to soak for an hour before sprinkling over the demerara over the top.
Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas mark 6. Place the dish in a large roasting tray and pour boiling water into the tray, so it comes halfway up the bread and butter dish, creating a bain marie. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the custard is cooked and a lovely crust has developed.
Remove the dish from the tray and leave to sit for 10 minutes. Serve with the rhubarb compote.
The Butcher’s Tap & Grill, 15 Spittal Street, Marlow, SL& 3HJ and 25-27 Tryon Street, London SW3 3LG
