][1]This blogger was lucky enough to be at the Number One Restaurant in Edinburgh’s Balmoral last week for the launch of their Secret Ingredient Gourmet Club.
Held on a quarterly basis, the idea is that a notable guest chef will help prep a meal at the restaurant and then do a Q&A with the audience.
Mark Hix, formerly of The Ivy and Caprice, now running four of his own restaurants, was the guest chef in question and he did a Q&A with the food writer, journalist and former Masterchef winner Sue Lawrence.
I’ve transcribed some of the highlights.
Mark Hix on what customers want:
When I was at The Ivy, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King taught me about looking after the customers. Most importantly they taught me to cook what the customer wants. A lot of the time, chefs cook what they think the customer wants to eat.
Hix on TV chefs:
There are very few people who manage to serve customers properly once they are doing TV. For me, it’s do one or the other.
I’ve never really gone in for it. That Great British Menu show, the one in which I did my Stargazey pie, was filmed in one of my kitchens. They repeat it a lot so it looks as though I’m never off TV but I don’t do a lot of it.
Some people can do both well. I think Rick Stein does a good job.
Hix on the popularity of foraging:
In some senses, chefs have almost exhausted the ingredients that we use in the kitchen. Foragers bringing new stuff can help re-energise the menu. It’s very exciting to find a new ingredient and a lot of customers like it when you present them with a menu that has something on it that they haven’t heard of or haven’t tried.
Hix on the fashionability of seasonal, locally sourced ingredients:
To be perfectly honest, the next time I hear about something being locally sourced and seasonal I will scream. As cooks and chefs we should be doing that anyway.
I get really annoyed when people make these declarations about things being locally sourced and seasonal and then you look at their menu and they have foie gras on it.
Cooking seasonally gives customers something to look forward to rather than eating the same menu all year round. From a commercial point of view, when something is in season not only is it at its best but it is also abundant and cheap.