Month: September 2012

So obviously you got your start in the restaurant business with your time on Masterchef, so why did you decide to apply to Masterchef in the first place?

I don’t know, because it was there I suppose, does that make any sense? I didn’t really have any plans the first time I applied to go on the programme for it to be a life changing thing, it was just an itch that needed scratching. I’d watched the programme for many years and, like a lot of people no doubt, thought I could do better and actually quite liked the idea of the challenge and err yeah.

So at what point did you decide to start this restaurant then?

It really was from when I entered a professional kitchen through Masterchef that made me think, “I want to do this”. In the process of doing reasonably well last year I just kind of started thinking do you know? This could actually make a change.  Because it’s an amateur competition when you get exposed to professional kitchens I was just completely bitten by it. As soon as you get in, the heat, the ferocity of it, the push, the stress, it was like “wow, this is great!” I’ve always had the cooking bug, but the cooking bug as far as I want to cook in a restaurant rather than for friends and family.

So how did you acquire this place?

Well, we’re actually sat in an Italian deli called “The Taste of Italy.” “Pompeo” owns the Taste of Italy and whilst Masterchef was being filmed and also whilst it was just starting to get shown on the telly, Pompeo and I got to know each other and we started doing a series of pop-up restaurants here where you just create a kitchen for the night and do an event. They went well and continued to go well, and eventually the two of us said, “Look why the heck don’t we get a restaurant going?” Six months from that decision we’re sat here now in “The Bronze Pig” which is still a deli during the day and at night time it becomes the Bronze Pig”, British food with a European Twist.

It’s an interesting name, “The Bronze Pig”. How did you come up with it?

Well….I wanted a name that could mean anything. There is a Bronze Boar in Florence, in Firenze, where I love to go and lots of tourists rub its nose. It’s a place you have to go to, you know, when you’re in Florence. Also I’ve got a sort of little lucky half an Irish “D” with a little pig on the back of it, and it’s just all those things mixed in together. Pompeo and I just wanted to come up with a name that could mean everything, anything or nothing at all. We thought it sounded like a strong name that could mean anything.

So all the food you serve here, all the ingredients are locally sourced?

Yeah, the menu changes with the seasonality of the food. Obviously there are exceptions to that rule, I haven’t seen a vanilla pod tree growing in Lincoln of late, but where we can we source locally. We use local butchers, local fishmongers, for instance we’ve got beef fillet on the menu at the moment and I could take you to the field where they’re growing in. How far their food’s travelled, let alone where it’s been bought up, how it’s been brought up is becoming increasingly important to people and rightly so. I think the least you can do with a beast if you’re going to kill it and eat it, is Look after it while it’s alive and give it the best.

What do you enjoy so much about cooking?

I think it’s as much the process as the end result; alchemy’s a very good word for it. Yes you start off with six or seven ingredients all of which have a flavour, a taste and depending on how you cook them and what quantities you put them together in, if you’re lucky, you can create something a little bit special. And a lot of people, myself included will say that sometimes you have no idea how.

So do you have a signature dish or something you most like to cook?

We’ve only been open for seven or eight weeks, so it’s a little too early to be talking about signature dishes. There are a couple of dishes which, the moment we take them off the menu, regulars are coming in and saying: “get that back on again.” But as far as food I like cooking, I like anything that’s fresh. Obviously I love cooking with fish, my time on Masterchef people saw me blooming covered in mackerel week in week out. It would have to be fish, but no it’s a tricky one to answer.

You said in an interview with Radio Times that your earliest memory was eating pilchard pizza, but what is your favourite food

There you go, back to fish again. Well you see that pilchard pizza actually, my mum used to make that. She had a family of four to bring up and it was a very cheap way of giving us nutritious food. She was working as well so it was a quick dish and to be honest if you gave it to me now I’d thank you for it. There’s something about it which is actually rather nice. But as far as fish now is concerned, crab I suppose. I’d say my favourite seafood would have to be crab. I don’t know what I’d do if crab didn’t exist.

So overall you’re just a big fan of seafood then?

Yeah, and I find myself living in Lincoln in Lincolnshire miles away from any coastline really. Yeah, I am a big fan of seafood. We’ve got relatives in Cornwall and every time we go down there it’s just fantastic, literally pulling mussels off the rocks and eating them raw.

So what has been the biggest challenge so far in running this restaurant?

That’s a good question, the biggest challenge in running the restaurant. Well obviously I co- run it with Pompeo. Pompeo deals with front of house, I’ve just been dealing with settling into a kitchen that’s new to me and when it gets busy, because of the size of the kitchen it can get a little ferocious in there.  Keeping that control on every single plate of food that goes out, that’s my biggest challenge.

You’re getting good reviews; I’ve heard good things about this place.

That’s very kind of you. We’re passionate about food, passionate about service and we just want people to come here and thoroughly enjoy themselves. You’re only as good as the last plate of food that went out, but of course we’re nothing without our punters so we’re eternally grateful to them. We just hope they keep coming back.

What are the main kinds of clientele that you get?

Hopefully happy ones, contented punters.

What do you think the future holds for you and Pompeo and your business?

Well we always said that we would stay here for a year and, at the end of the year if we didn’t kill each other, we’d sit down and see what we’d do, whether we’d stay, whether we’d move on, whether we’d separate but so far so good. I think we just want to concentrate now on the next year, I’ve got my ideas but I’ll keep them close to my chest for the moment.

So you just want to take it a year at a time?

That’s right, one thing I will say, The Bronze Pig isn’t a cathedral to food where you speak in hushed tones and gasp at the plates as they show up. It’s a place where we want people to come and enjoy themselves and god forbid but have a laugh. We’re just going to concentrate on spending the year really honing that, you’ve got to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run.

Okay, thanks for talking to me.

Adam that’s not a problem mate, anytime at all. You can come in and have a taste of the food, see what we’re about.