In the last few years at the Greyhound,  I have tried my best to maintain the already good reputation the pub had, and where possible, raise the standard.
Not being a restaurant, people's expectations are often surpassed. We often catch people of guard with the quality of what we do. Coming to the Greyhound, guests know they can have cheese and tuna toastie, a bacon and chilli burger or grilled sea bass and wild mushroom risotto.
One bone of contention I've had over the past year has been the chips. A few comments on a review site have alluded to "why don't you make hand cut chips?"
Again, we are a pub, with a tiny kitchen, selling 80kg of chips on some weekends! So I think you know why.... I ain't peeling 80kg of spuds just for chips, then blanching them, cooling and storing them before re frying them. No thanks.
We use Lord chips. They are a highly respected all potato chilled chip. This was not good enough for some people, who went on to put their views on them on to the Web.
The quest was on to find an alternative.
Due to import and export problems at various ports around the UK, we were at one point delivered a frozen chip from another company.
Customer and staff feedback alike was good. People were loving these.
This is where, as a chef with values, I had to make a choice.
No brainer you may think? Well no. These new chips were full of additives, flavourings and preservatives. Something I'm have tried to usher out over the past couple of years.
My ethos is natural, real food. I know some additives are required in some food. But do we need them in our chips. Am I wrong to want to do away with the artificial chip?
What would you do?

I'm sitting on the train on my way back k from a two day break in the city of London. It has been amazing to say the least. I have over indulged on food of varying quality but it has been fantastic. Every Brit should visit the capital at least once in their life.
What I wanted to write in this post, was about the food and in particular, Borough Market. This was my first visit here in years and I was absolutely blown away and captivated by the beauty, atmosphere, smells and flavours of the place.
Every single stall I walked by had something I wanted to try something. To be honest, I pretty much did! The vendors are all very  clued in about their products and they are very happy for you to try a sample.
The smell which came from the Soul Food stand was awesome. The spices filled the air while the smoke from the barbecue stall wafted through.
I saw a Thai food stand. The women there were preparing some little coconut pancakes. I had to get myself some of those.

They were lovely.
I feel every chef, food lover or amateur cook should visit the market. I've been inspired and motivated to produce some new dishes. A small spice hut which was selling spices (funny enough) drew me in. I picked up a new spice tin, with several new and different spices which I have not used before. I can't wait to cook with them.

Just for your viewing pleasure. I've included pics of the sexiest cake stall I've ever seen.

Get yourself down to the Market!

Back when I was a teacher of professional cookery, one of the areas we were constantly reminded of and told to keep on top of, was CPD (continuing professional development).
To a lot of fellow teachers, this involved looking at occasional websites and blogs. To me, I kept a part time job at a restaurant which enabled me to keep my chef skills on point, which in turn made me a better teacher.
That was then. Now I'm working as a full time chef again am still very aware that I need to keep the dishes which I produce, current and up to date with trends.
Of course there are some timeless classics which shouldn't be messed with, that's not to say they can't be jazzed up a little. But only slightly.
I read blogs, I follow other chefs, nutritionists and food producers on social media. As well as chatting with fellow professionals in the real world. No matter what industry you work in or have a passion for, staying on point with 2015 is vital. Or we run the risk of producing the same dish/product in the same way for 20 years.
This week was able to get hold of some pigeon breasts. My first thought was Black pudding, bacon and pigeon salad with croutons. A real classic. but then I remembered that I've down that dish almost every time.
So through after a search through the mind archives. I came up with this Linguine dish.
Firstly I knew that the breasts would go well with wild mushrooms. The next step was getting the sauce right. I used a light demi glacé with some diced concasse tomatoes and fresh thyme. When cooking with meats which have a distinctive flavour, it is very important to not kill it off with an overpowering sauce or garnish.
So to summarise, stay current, time sneaks up on us all. Don't jump on every trend, but cherry pick styles you can relate to.
Have a lovely day.