We pulled Tom Aikens away from his restaurants and into the Savile Club kitchen for one evening to cook for our London Fashion Week dinner. After a manic day, our guests were pleasantly surprised to be served a gorgeous British supper based on a traditional roast, using locally sourced British ingredients. During the break between first and second courses we stepped the other side of the kitchen door to talk food memories and Britishness.
On what he likes to cook…
I would say I am fairly traditional on the weekends and on my days off, anything from a simple carrot cake to a lemon and rosemary roast chicken, I am very happy to be pottering around in the kitchen all day cooking and eating, even making waffles for breakfast is a real treat!
On his earliest food memory…
On one particular trip my father booked us into a Michelin Two Star restaurant, by complete accident. He only realised the magnitude of what he had booked when we arrived at the hotel to find our car surrounded by four guys wearing white gloves and bow ties. My father was never one for looking in a guidebook it was all one by word of mouth or a Frenchmen telling him to try this place out.
That evening we had the most amazing meal and it is one of those inspirational gastronomic moments that I will never forget. It was still the era of nouvelle cuisine so tiny portions and lots of courses. The tastes and flavours were stunning! I had the most beautiful tomato salad with simple olive oil, basil, finely diced shallots, course sea salt: A fillet steak melted in my mouth – a tall tower of beef fillet that had been larded with beef fat , it was sublime and perfection in one, the waiters lifting endless cloche for my parents with course after course, we also had the best chips ever, an accompanying stacked tower of perfectly cooked and cut potato. The tastes were sensational, I was in heaven and as I say I’ll never forget it.
On his new restaurant…
It’s fun, not over-formal and I love some of quotes and historical foodie facts on the walls:
“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” ~ Harriet van Horne
“Never eat more than you can lift.” ~ Miss Piggy
“Worthless people love only to eat and drink, people of worth eat and drink only to live.” ~ Socrates (BC469-BC399)
On his five favourite British things…
The things that sum up why I love Britain: summers of Pimms and lemonade and picnics on the lawn, open air concerts on warm evenings, the royal family, fish and chips, Afternoon tea at the Connaught Hotel in London.