Crap Food Please, We’re British

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/benoit_d/

British chefs don’t have a clue. The English wouldn’t know good food if it stood up and bit them.

Had you leveled these accusations during the ‘70s or ‘80s you would have been met with glum agreement even from the British. Try to make them stick today and you have a tougher fight on your hands. Britain has spent the last twenty years waking from a culinary slumber.

One major catalyst was the rise of the celebrity chef. The eagerness with which the British public embraced the new, media-savvy, culinary stars was all-encompassing. They were everywhere, telling us how to cook, where to shop and what to eat. And it was easy to see why. The same personalities which had propelled these chefs to the top of the culinary industry made them naturals for television.

But to understand why the British have fallen in love with food, you have to look beyond the rise of TV chefs, to the period when these cooking stars were just learning their trade.

London in the late 1980s was fertile with economic opportunity. The City was deregulating and awash with American bankers. London was more sure of its place in the world but at the same time open to European influences — and a wave of European immigration. Café culture was taking hold; people began to socialize over food in restaurants rather than drinks in pubs. And their expectations were based on the good dining experiences they had enjoyed abroad.

Some great (mainly French) chefs chose to make Britain their home during this time. The Roux brothers at Le Gavroche, Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire and Nico Ladenis at Chez Nico, all masters of their profession, were passing on their experience to a new crop of British trainees. It was only a matter of time before one of their progeny established his own foothold in the culinary world.

Marco Pierre White was that person. From within the kitchens of a series of Michelin-starred restaurants he took the UK dining scene by the scruff of its neck and shook it vigorously. With the publication of White Heat, his very stylized cookbook, his influence went global. Suddenly cooking was rock ’n’ roll. This was the turning point for British restaurant food and the beginning of the love affair.

The improvement in standards across the country was dramatic. In 1990 there were 20 Michelin stars in Britain outside London; today there are 96. Much of this is due to the influence of White, and the chefs who passed through his kitchens (a certain Gordon Ramsay included). Their skills and knowledge filtered across the country — local restaurants and gastropubs aspire to the heights that were previously the preserve of big London hotel restaurants.

With many of these local establishments today promoting a new take on British cuisine, such as nose-to-tail eating, UK cooking is at a point where it can stand on its own two (or four?) feet. And as those overexposed celebrity chefs quietly slip back behind their stoves again, they do so safe in the knowledge that it is a glorious time for British food.

The Fat Banker is a derivatives trader living in London who prefers to remain anonymous, so that he can go on telling people he’s a traffic warden or something respectable. If you like what you see here there’s much more where this came from, at appetiteindulgence.com.