Serving Up #3
The Newsletter of Brighton's Best Restaurants
The Lowdown: Kim Woodward
Executive Chef, Black Rock Group
What’s your earliest food memory?
My mum’s trifle. When I go back up north, my mum always does me a trifle every single time I go there. It’s a classic sherry trifle, she always keeps it the same. It’s just one of those beauties; it’s nostalgic. I can eat more than one.
Are you a coffee or tea person?
A flat white, or a double espresso, and only one in the morning. I like Monmouth coffee, they’re fantastic beans. I’m not addicted to coffee like some chefs. I don’t need it. I’m full of energy myself.
If you weren’t a chef, what would you be?
I wanted to be a photographer before I wanted to be a chef. I’m very big into food photography.
What is the best thing about being a chef?
Being a chef, you have to love food passionately. Working in the five Black Rock concepts, it’s always about being creative, not doing the same food all the time and keeping it moving. It’s very important to be part of the seasons changing. It’s about getting in the kitchens with the chefs, teaching and training them, or just being in the kitchen and seeing the stunning food go out.
What’s the worst thing about being a chef?
I’d say the hours, but the hours don’t bother you if you’re engrossed in your work. I’ve been doing it for so long - over 25 years - it just comes naturally to me. I don’t really hate anything about being a chef. I love being around good people who care about their job, whether it’s the front of house or the back of house. That, for me, is the most important thing, being around that energy. If you love what you do, you want to come to work every day. That’s like gold dust; you want to be around positive people.
Who do you most admire in the hospitality industry?
Clare Smyth. We both worked for Gordon Ramsay and I’ve become a good friend of hers. She’s got three Michelin Stars at her restaurant Core and now another star at Corenucopia; her level of cooking is absolutely brilliant. She’s someone to really look up to as a strong woman in the industry.
What’s the next restaurant on your hit list?
Wildflowers in London. It’s cooking on open fire, it’s seasonally led, it’s got a great Mediterranean menu. I’ve also got Maré by Rafael Cagali in Hove on my list to go check out.
What is the best food destination in the world and why?
I’m a big fan of Bordeaux. I go every year. Where you’ve got great wine, you’ve got great food. I love French cooking. I love the style of it, the richness of it. A perfect confit duck leg, that’s my kind of thing.
What’s the best thing you’ve eaten in a restaurant recently?
An amazing cote de boeuf at Jason Atherton’s restaurant Sael in London. I also love their little Marmite English custard tarts. It’s fantastic cooking, it’s consistent every time I go.
It’s your birthday, how are you celebrating?
I’d normally go for oysters and champagne somewhere down in Soho for lunch. And then at dinner, I would find a restaurant that I’ve never been to before like The Ledbury and order a very good bottle of wine from Bordeaux.
Kim Woodward is the Executive Chef of the Black Rock Group, which includes The Coal Shed, Burnt Orange, The Salt Room, Tutto and the newly opened The Crazy Goose pub.
What’s in Anna Reilly’s Glass?
Chignin Bergeron, Domaine Jean Perrier & Fils, Cuvée Gastronomie, 2024 is from the super steep terrain of Savoie in France, where Domaine Jean Perrier & Fils has been growing vines for seven generations since 1853. Today, they have 59 hectares under vine across eight towns. This is a pure mountain wine; golden in the glass with an intense nose of clementine zest, apricot, hawthorne and white pepper. A coating mouthfeel with a complex palate, yet with vibrant acidity and a flinty finish. Electric and delicious. To be enjoyed with friends over a chicken roasted with lemon and thyme and buttery potatoes, or at Fourth and Church with burrata with saffron and preserved lemon, poached kohlrabi and mint and pistachio chermoula.
The wine is currently available on Fourth and Church’s by-the-glass list and is also available to buy here.
Anna Reilly is Events and Wine Development Manager at Fourth and Church.
The details
Fourth and Church
84 Church Rd, Brighton and Hove, Hove BN3 2EB
01273 724709; fourthandchurch.co.uk
This Sunday (29 March), between 12pm and 5pm, Fourth and Church are holding a Spring into Beaujolais: Try Before You Buy event. £10 for three pours. Special discounts available for cases purchased on the day.
My Food Hero
Anthony Bourdain by chef Dan Kenny of The Set
I read Anthony Bourdain’s first book, Kitchen Confidential, when I was about 14, and I started working in kitchens a few weeks later. I wanted to be a chef because it just sounded like so much fun. The description of a lot of pirates and misfits that wanted to be in an environment where they could get up to no good was quite appealing at that age. I’ve been a big Bourdain fan ever since. We eat a lot of Bourdain travel show-inspired dishes for staff food, and we have a lot of his favourite music on our playlist. We’ve always had the ‘Cook-free or die’ posters in the dining room of wherever we’ve been cooking.
One of Bourdain’s favourite cuisines was Vietnamese, and I lived in Vietnam for a couple of years in the late 2000s. I was actually in the same restaurant as him one evening when he was filming Parts Unknown in Ho Chi Minh City. A friend of mine went and borrowed a lighter from him, not knowing who he was. Then we saw all the cameras, and realised it was Bourdain.
Bourdain is one of those rare characters where I think 99% of people like him. There’s a lot of Bourdain fans, a lot of people who relate to his views and approach to life. He’s always been a bit of a hero, so it seemed an obvious theme for a pop-up; all the dishes on The Set’s Bourdain Residency at Cafe Rust are inspired by him.
The menu starts with an oyster, which was the first thing that Bourdain had when he was on holiday in France with his parents that blew his mind. The bream ceviche dish came from watching one of his travel shows about South America. The marinade changes every time we make it, but we use a really good quality vinegar and citrus fruits like yuzu and pummelo from Todoli in Spain. I always put something hot in there, like green chilli or jalapeno juice and finish it with some kind of raw allium and fresh herbs.
St John in London was Bourdain’s favourite restaurant, and I agree with him. The bone marrow, toast and parsley salad is such a famous dish that we had to include it. I like having a clean, raw start to a meal and then going into really rich, fatty big old chunks of bone marrow. Coq au vin is in Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. We’ll use really good Sussex chickens from Barfields Butchers and make the mash with loads of butter and creme fresh. It’s one of those dishes you don’t really want to mess with. We’re finishing with a crème brûlée and then some Stichelton blue cheese, both Bourdain favourites.
Win a table for two at The Set’s Bourdain Residency - click here to head to The Set’s crowdfunding page and buy a raffle ticket for £2. You’ll also be supporting The Set’s effort to raise money to fit out their brand new site in the former Kitgum Kitchen premises on Preston Road, due to open at the end of May.
The Details
The Set Bourdain Residency
6-course menu £65pp
6pm and 8.15pm
15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, 24th, 29th, 30th April
1st and 2nd May
Cafe Rust, 50 Preston Road, Brighton, BN1, 4QF
Visit thesetrestaurant.com to book
Brighton’s Best Cocktail Club
Honeygroni by The Apiary
Order at the bar or make at home
Ingredients
20ml Honeybush infused gin (Apiary use 58&co. House Gin)
20ml Beesou honey apperitif (available online)
20ml Vault Meadow Vermouth (available online)
7.5ml Botivo British aperitivo (available online)
Combine all ingredients over ice, stir well, and strain into a frozen rocks glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with a honeycomb tuile.
For the infused Honeybush gin
Use 5g of Honeybush Tea per 250ml of gin. Combine and leave overnight, then fine-strain before use.
For the honeycomb tuile
1 egg white, weighed (usually 30g)
30g butter (or the same weight as the egg white)
30g honey (or the same weight as the egg white)
30g flour (or the same weight as the egg white)
Melt the butter and honey over low heat until the butter has completely melted. Take off the heat and whisk in the flour. Wait until slightly cooled, and then whisk in the egg white quickly to avoid the egg cooking or scrambling. Take the batter and spread over honeycomb moulds (available online). Bake in the oven at 160°C for around 10mins, or until golden. Leave to cool, and then gently pop out of the mould.
The details
The Apiary
50 Norfolk Square, Brighton, BN1 2PA
07517087072; apiary.co.uk
On our radar: Chef Mishael Ahmed
Popping up with ‘Dastarkwaan’ at The Greenhouse, Hove, 3-5 April
How did you get into cooking?
My mother is a baker. I come from a very big family; I’m one of seven kids, so I was in the kitchen from a very early age. I moved to Brighton from Birmingham, where I grew up and got my first cheffing job at The Pond. From there, I moved on to Shelter Hall. As soon as I mastered one kitchen there, I was like, “Oh, give me another kitchen to work in”, so I was working at four kitchens pretty much at the same time.
I then met chef Kanthi Thamma of The Spice Circuit Kitchen, and he invited me to assist him with some of his pop-ups. I also did a few months at Salt Shed. I learned a lot from them about grilling and the balance of flavours and pairing pickles and meats, which was incredibly helpful for the Pickle Party events that I’ve been running this year. I moved from there to Kitgum Kitchen, where a lot of my skills were really shaped. Then I decided to go freelance because I’m not good at just doing one job; I like spinning a lot of plates and doing a lot of things.
What’s the inspiration behind your first pop-up, ‘Dastarkwaan’?
Dastarkwaan takes its name from the Urdu term for a ceremonial tablecloth. This menu is a tribute to the flavours of my childhood and Friday evenings spent gathered on the floor on a Dastarkwaan with my family, sharing our favourite dishes together. The menu consists of Pakistani food, Afghani food, and some Chinese elements. I love being really ingredients-focused and fusing them with loads of different techniques and cultures. My mother was an amazing chef; she cooked so many different cuisines, including Afghan, Lebanese, Syrian and Middle Eastern food in general, so she is a big influence.
Being Pakistani and working at Kitgum was really awesome because we made a lot of Pakistani recipes that were really authentic, so I wanted to pull that in as well because I’ve seen how easy it is to marry the flavours of Afghani food and Pakistani food.
Anytime I’m at home and I’m meal prepping for myself, it somehow seems to always be Chinese food. I’m really obsessed with Szechuan flavours, and so I’ve got the little theme of Szechuan running throughout the menu as well.
What else do you have coming up?
I work for a chef called Marios Miliorellis. He’s incredible. He’s had some experience at Noma. I have been helping him out the last few months, running his pop-up kitchens in North and East London, doing Greek and French fine dining. I also run cooking classes and do some private dining events in Morocco. I’m trying to attack every area of cheffing whilst also trying to do social media at the same time. Somehow, it calms my brain having multiple jobs. I will be posting any and all dates of my future events and classes on my Instagram @on.the.road.to.mishelin.
The Details
Dastarkwaan by Mishael Ahmed
2 - 5 April 5pm-9pm
The Greenhouse, 55 Church Road, Brighton, BN3 3AJ
thegreenhousebrighton.com
The a la carte menu of eight dishes will include aubergine borani (£7), fried chicken wings in date, lemon and Aleppo glaze (£11) and gulab jamun sticky toffee pudding with miso chantilly cream (£8.5).
Out of Town: Other, Bristol
The talent that chef Zak Hitchman refined at places like Ynyshir and Casamia shines through every bite in Other. It’s just brilliant. The name is very apt; there’s nowhere in Bristol quite like it. Expect small plates heavy with inspiration and innovation; chicken and sesame toast, smoked beef cheeks and lamb fat-fried doughnuts that are so good they’ve been featured on the Off Menu podcast multiple times. It’s colourful, eccentric and well worth a significant detour.
The details
Other
32 Cannon St, Bedminster, Bristol BS3 1BN
07503 144325; otherrestaurant.co.uk
Review by Meg Houghton-Gilmour of The Bristol Sauce.