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Spring is finally here. There may have been volcanic ash floating around the upper atmosphere, causing all sorts of mayhem to peoples travel plans, but with beautiful villages such as Keyston in Cambridgeshire, in full bloom and the sun shining, why would you need to go anywhere else. I drove through the village slowly, marvelled at the flowers; not a regular occurrence for me, and felt a pang of nostalgia seeing an old red telephone box. It felt a little like a time warp back to 1988. I bet the telephone was in working order too; it all seemed a little too quaint here for hoodies.
I was here to meet with Jay Scrimshaw; Chef/Owner of The Pheasant, and his head chef Liam Goodwill. Jay and Liam competed in the 2009/10 series of Channel 4’s ‘the F Word’. They finished 2nd overall, and did so, by championing local British ingredients and not taking the safe option, when they had a real chance to win.
When I walked into the kitchen to meet Jay, the first thing I noticed was a picture of Jay and Liam on ‘The F Word’. Sandwiched in between them was an arms folded, and unsmiling Gordon Ramsay. The second thing to notice was a topless calendar; provided by one of their kind suppliers. April was an ok month, Jay told me “You should come and see it in May”. Thankfully, the PC brigade haven’t managed much of an impact in kitchens, not yet anyway.
Saturday lunch was 3 hours away; another full house. This has been the case ever since the final of the ‘F Word’ back in January; a phenomenon that took everyone by surprise. The day after the final, they received a staggering 2000 emails and had 2 people constantly manning the phones. “It was simply overwhelming”; only now are they beginning to get their staffing levels to a comfortable level. “We simply couldn’t buy the kind of publicity ‘The F Word’ gave us”. Over 3 million people tuned in to watch the final. “We took a few too many bookings and were under too much pressure. It simply wasn’t enjoyable and we needed to catch up”. Many lessons have been learnt, and the momentum shows no sign of letting up. It is testament to the principles and skills of Jay, Liam and their team that people make the journey to try their brand of British seasonal cooking that was showcased over the few weeks that they appeared on TV. They are fully booked on weekends through to July. It is most definitely a destination restaurant, and people have really bought into what they are doing here with their local suppliers; cooking good, tasty and down to earth food, using each and every cut of the meat; you definitely wont find any foams or liquid nitrogen on show here.
Has Gordon been back since the F Word? He called immediately after the final to say what a success it all had been, and has phoned a couple of times since to ask how things were going.
I asked Jay if he would’ve done anything different in the final; their menu of Carpaccio of Brawn, Trio of Dexter beef and Tarte Tatin was high level cooking Marmite; you were either going to love it or hate it. If you use Pigs head and Beef heart, you have to accept that it is likely to polarise opinions. Did he ever consider a safer option? “We said from the very beginning that we would stick to doing what we do at the pub, rather than glamming it up for telly. Every dish that you saw there would’ve been there on our menu in some format, and when everything took off afterwards, people came in asking for the dish specifically”
So how did Jay end up in cooking here in rural Cambridgeshire? “ I was fed up of London, and wanted to do something different, my own thing”. John Hoskins, who owns ‘The Old Bridge’ in Huntingdon approached Jay in 2005, and offered to sell him the pub; they initially ran the business for a couple of years, then bought it outright in 2007. It had been with John’s family since the 1960s, and would be considered one of the original ‘ gastropubs’. “It was a very helpful experience to have a couple of years without the financial pressures of ownership, and also to develop the relationships with the local farmers and suppliers”.
“When I arrived here, the kitchen was using many London-based suppliers, and local produce wasn’t highly featured. There are loads of suppliers out there, and we’re still finding more, and more importantly, they are finding us. We have worked very hard to develop relationships with local farmers and breeders and found that if you pay the farmer some money to bring produce to your pub, you’re creating a local economy and also helping to keep the locals onside”.
It’s fashionable at the moment to buy local produce, but also, people are coming round to the fact that they spend a lot of time eating, they may as well enjoy it, they may as well know where it’s from, may as well eat the best”.
Jay dashes off outside through his newly laid vegetable beds and I follow him out back; there were twenty or so Limousin cows grazing on Manor Farm. The relationship with his neighbour and beef farmer runs very closely; so much so that they’re had a bit of a disagreement over what to feed the cows. Jay had suggested local Rapeseed would add some fat and marbling to the meat; it didn’t. They have since moved back to extra grain to add that rich creamy fat. It was worth a try though.
“We buy eggs from a lady down the road and have to wait sometimes for the hens to lay. It feels better than ordering from a random supplier. There is a lady from Kimbolton, which is about 10 miles away who breeds Dexter cattle from September until spring; a much smaller animal and amazingly tender ”
We buy whole animals and sausages from Fruitpig, who supply only free-range and rare breed pedigree pigs”.
To help to illustrate the quality of meat, and it’s provenance, I follow Jay to their walk-in fridge and see several different animals hanging on hooks from the ceiling; a large leg of locally shot Venison; belly pork that has been cured for pancetta; a couple of rare breed ‘Berkshire’ pigs that have been sawn in half. All the pigs arrive with their own certificate of origin from the farmer.
Everything is butchered in the building, and the butcher makes the pub sausages for them; to their own recipe from rare breed ‘Tamworth’ pigs.
Jay calls me into the fridge to help carry half a pig back to the kitchen to be broken down; everything will be used; shoulders and neck for ravioli, legs for sunday roast, loins for chops, belly for pancetta, pigs head for terrine. Nothing is wasted.
I ask if he was comfortable with butchery when he first arrived at The Pheasant; “I had probably butchered whole animals a couple of times, but through some trial and error, and a few tips through the local butchers we have perfected our techniques”
Trial and error is a vital part of any kitchen; it helps to improve the skill levels of everyone and push things forward, but invariably, there will be some costly mistakes along the way. “We’re going to do some cured hams again soon; we tried before, but it was too warm and when we checked the hams, they’d gone off; it’s a learning curve for us and keeps things interesting.”
Jay acknowledges the occasional downsides of buying local British produce are high prices and consistency; “if you buy an English product it’s a double zero on the end; you’re generally buying from farmers, and they like money. They have cottoned on quickly that chefs are willing to pay for good produce. It’s not always the best option from a pure business sense, but you need to make that decision that you want to use local produce, and it’s going to cost a little more”
I also spoke with head chef Liam; I already knew about his passion for local produce, who highlighted some of the minor pitfalls of buying British also. “We recently received some Manx Lambs from a farmer; the first was absolutely beautiful. Then we received the second, and it just wasn’t anywhere near as good. We’d already experienced this problem before; a guy in the village starting breeding lambs and thought he could just bundle the lambs into the back of his 4 x 4 and run them down to the abattoir. You can taste in the meat when an animal has been stressed out before it is killed. This particular lamb must have been hard to get into the trailer, so the farmer grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and pushed it into the trailer. We had it, cooked it and it was shit. That has been one of the challenges to overcome; to find really caring and trusted farmers who understand and respect the animals, and the link between their welfare and the taste”.
12pm rolls around and it’s time for me to let Jay and team get on with doing what they do best; cooking amazing local produce with respect, care and attention. And as Gordon himself would say, “ F**k off out of my kitchen ”
Starter: £5.50-£8.00
Main Course: £15-£25
Keyston
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE28 0RE
