 playing with your food. That's the mark of a maker. The KitchenAid stand mixer and attachments. Hello and welcome to the very last in the British Library 2020 food season, generously sponsored by KitchenAid and coming to you live wonderfully from the hand and flowers Tom Carridge's restaurant and pub in Marlowe. My name is Polly Russell. I'm a curator at the British Library and I'm the founder and the curator of the food season and this year I have had the absolute delight of working with Angela Clutton as the guest director. When we thought about the food season we wanted to make sure it was really eclectic really engaging and that it included some of the most interesting voices in food and Tom is certainly one of those so I am delighted that we are here coming to you live. Angela is chairing this event and that is just perfect. Angela is the author of Vinegar Covered. That was her first book and it won an obscene number of prizes. I can't even list them. She's also a regular writer for Barre Market and many newspapers and magazines. She runs the Cookbook Club at Barre Market and a podcast series as well. She is incredibly knowledgeable about food and restaurants and so she's the perfect host for this evening. Over to you Angela. Thank you Polly. Gorgeous, gorgeous introduction as ever and yes we are here in Marlowe a fabulous way to bring the British Library food season to a close and here with lovely Tom Carrot, the best person to a closing food season with. Thanks. I'm going to do a little introduction to Tom but I think we're obviously going to talk through the session you know pretty much about everything that you've done but just to give a little bit of a highlight here. So we are here at the Hands and Flows or they were actually in the shed which is a private dining space. Private dining space. Hands and flowers down the road. The coach crossed the road. Off is it? Yeah. All over Marlowe. Before this works a chef in restaurants right across Britain and I think I'm right in saying two thousand and five open hands and flowers. Yep. The first only pub to win two Michelin stars. So far. There'll be others I'm sure. There will be others. 2014 opened the coach over the road. Second pub in Marlowe which within its first year of trading received three AA rosettes. It was voted third best pub in Britain by the top 50 gastric pub awards. It was awarded Michelin star in 2017. Also in 2017. You open the butchers tap in Marlowe which is the butchers. I love this. I love that you have a butchery as well as having pubs and restaurants in the whole thing. I really want to talk about the butchery. Yeah. Then October 18th opened Charity's Bar and Grill in Carinthia in London followed by the Pollen Bear Stock Exchange in Manchester which opened in November 19th. Still going on Tom's Viog. Four of your own BBC TV series as well. I know I'm looking at you like you're going to tell me it's wrong or something. No I'm trying to work out. Four of your own TV series as well as Being in the Helm or BBC's Bake Off Crams and Crams, Food and Drink. Also Hosted Sastic Kitchen. So many best-selling books. Proper pub food. Tom Carrick's Best Ever Dishes and one of the reasons. One of the fabulous reasons why we're here. This beauty of a book which is out I think in a couple of weeks time. Yeah middle of November. I can pre-order it now though. And actually even more of an excitement of being able to pre-order it. You've got to see sign some of these for the British Library. Yes. So we if you go onto the tab and you'll be able to see where you can buy the book and it won't just be able to buy this gorgeous book. It's also signed by Tom. We're going to talk loads about the book and just massive congratulations on it. It is just a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Let's get stuck in. We're going to do about 45 minutes of chat and then we're going to go to questions. So anyone watching if you have a question please do pop it in. If you scroll down your screen you can write a question in. Tom has declared himself happy to answer questions on anything. Anything. No bother at all. I'm not very good at spelling so I don't like that. However like after that we're all right. We can talk about whatever you like. All right good stuff. So please do write your questions in and we'll get to those a little bit later on. It's October 2020. Tom Carridge is a fundamental British restaurant scene. It would be wrong to go through this session and not talk about everything that's happening at the moment of the industry and we will certainly get to that and I think it's very important for us to talk about that. Of course. But let's have a moment of celebration first before we get to that because it's 15 years of hand and flowers and the book coming out. So let's just talk about everything to kind of get to this point. Why a pub? So I've worked in I mean I've been a chef pretty much since the age of 18. I like I approach it. Okay let's go back let's go back let's go back back back. Okay let's talk about your journey into food. Well basically between the ages of 16 and 18 I didn't do very much. I kind of like Dostin and my mum calls it kind of like my Dost years and it's kind of like I did little bits on television like as a like as a child actor and some bizarre I fell into it. It's basically how I spent my whole life. I just say yes to stuff and things kind of happen and I just I just go yeah all right and I did it but it wasn't really the world for me. It's not it's not what I thought I'd ever be doing and it wasn't something that it wasn't a world that I was completely like sucked into like acting. A great actor is amazing brilliant however they spend their day pretending to be somebody else and I find that quite like I like being me. So I was like okay and so I ended up needing money as an 18 year old and so I went into a kitchen and washing up basically looking for work and pretty much the moment I walked through the door of a professional kitchen in a hotel back in Gloucestershire was and I fell in love with it's not food. I haven't I didn't fall into the industry because of food. I haven't got you know I didn't learn to make apple pie with my nan and all of those sort of things. It wasn't it isn't that kind of love story of food. It was the industry that I fell in love with. It was the people. It was the kind of left field way of life. The late nights, the early mornings. The kitchens are quite often full of I mean I best describe it as like a pirate ship. It's full of like why you call people pirates. Exactly so the hand of the flower is I mean it's very much there's a big sign on the door on the kitchen door that says danger do not enter pirates with knives and fire and it's pretty much standard the way it is. It's always the beautiful thing about the hospitality scene is it attracts many people from it's completely eclectic and wonderfully embracing. It doesn't matter what race, religion, sexuality, country, monetary background, education. It doesn't matter where you come from it embraces everybody because you're in it for the sole reason that it's led by people with passion that love doing what they do in an area that's got a vibrancy and a buzz and an atmosphere that is very different to any other way of life and I love that. I love the fact that if you work in kitchens or you work front and house that world is very very different and you were always told when I was younger that you know if you work in hospitality or the social life's really bad and the hours are really long. Okay so the hours are really long however the social life is not bad. The social life is amazing. It is just very different but you know all the best bars to go to, you know the best clubs, you know the best restaurants you get looked after and chefs in particular have this kind of like pirate ship mentality. It's quite eclectic. There's quite often some waves and strays of society that end up in kitchens and they're great to learn from, to be around people and it's a hugely wonderful cultural mix of backgrounds and also outlooks to life that is quite you know some people have quite dodgy past, some people in kitchens still have dodgy futures. However they're amazing to spend time with and I love that about it. I love that about the industry. So can I just jump in there with something? Yeah because for some people there is an impression of the restaurant industry as being quite maybe quite macho, quite aggressive in the kitchens and there's also feeling I think that maybe that is changing and moving through. Do you think both those things are fair that it maybe was quite like that and that's changing? I think it's adrenaline fuel and that's slightly that's different. So where you get on that adrenaline push and it's very hard work but it's not work if you enjoy it, if you enjoy the idea of what you're doing, if you enjoy being I don't know, it's the same sort of thing as I imagine people that do in ironman training and things that run a lot, do a lot of that you know you like the physical pain of getting to the end of something. Kitchens are very much like that and actually when you're working kitchens it's not so much about the cooking, a lot of it is about the repetitive process, the sore feet and the bad back and the whatever else are doing something that physicality and that mental strength of getting through it and you have those kind of adrenaline rushes twice a day you've got to be ready for lunch, you've got to be ready for dinner, you're under pressure and it's a fine line between I suppose aggression and nervousness and being ready for lunch and actually go in the other side of it where it becomes very very uncomfortable and it's horrible so it's that level of always pushing yourself that I fell in love with and kitchens the hours are a lot less now, everybody works very hard to try and make sure that everybody has their days off whether it's two, whether it's three days a week, whether it's longer hours, half shifts, whatever else, they're much more kitchens are much more embracing of a new, I suppose a new need and a new culture within kitchens to make it much more embracing for, just for future generations, for younger for younger chefs coming into kitchens they're very much of an Instagram age so you see so much that goes on everywhere else and it becomes much more about the experience of being places, eating places, seeing things and to do that you need to create an environment that people enjoy being in so kitchens have very much changed since the early 90s when I joined them to now. Interesting, so fine dining as you say was sort of where you sort of fell in love with the whole thing and so to go back to my first question which I'm very happy we're backtracked on, my first question why have, why the move from being in that fine dining world to having the hands and flowers at the pub? Because on my days off the places that I would always feel comfortable in places that I have always felt most comfortable in was the pub, so you know as a chef it was always to me you know as a young chef or then even as I got older being in a pub is something that is they're very embracing, they again it comes back like kitchens that it doesn't matter where you're from, pub is short for public house, I think it's a public house, it's allowed everybody in you know when you work in top-end restaurants or amazing hotels there is a certain pinch point of demographic that will eat or dine or stay there and it might be somebody that has saved up money for for two years to come and have a wonderfully special occasion however they're not going to come back again for another year or two and if they do if they save up that money again they might choose to go to another top-end space the beautiful thing about a pub is it kind of embraces it makes everybody feel comfortable we all know from a certain age when you walk through the door of the pub there's a pint of you know relay or you go to the bar someone should smile and say hello and it doesn't matter whether it's the two machines or hand of flowers or whether it's a wet leg boozer just round the corner from the house there there should be a warmth about it and energy in an atmosphere and that's why pubs are really special and that are really special to me because it doesn't matter where you're from pubs should be embracing everybody yeah I think what you've really achieved in the book is conveying that it's it really really comes across because it is about this recipe and we'll talk about some of the recipes and they aren't staggering but the initial build up to where you really kind of set the scene for all is just great because it really gets you as the reader into the world with hand of flowers like conviviality that obviously means so much to you really really comes across and you do tell some lovely stories about the early days of hand of flowers yeah I mean I mean there's lots of stories I mean for 15 years that has been there and we grew from myself and two other guys in the kitchen Chris who was one of the main and is still with us has been we've worked together for me the 18 years now and it is the he's the person that really we owe a lot of this book to the process of putting it together and and Luke who was the other chef in the kitchen when we first opened who's now head chef of glim pernell up in Birmingham but we we opened that space and and it was designed to be a place where food that we could enjoy and be we would like to be on our days off and as it grows and as the business has grown over the time and over these years you know the kitchen brigade now you know is there's around about 18 chefs there over a seven day period rather than three and and through the heart so the dna of the recipes and the ethos hasn't hasn't changed at all just the standard and the level of cookery has obviously grown and grown and everything is about being always been about reinvestment within the business but most importantly people so as it's grown and as people have come through the doors of the hand of flowers there's also an awful lot of stories in 15 years 15 years of the business you see a lot you experience a lot you go through recessions we head to another one now you go through people and staff and stores there's such a 15 years is a long time in a business and it doesn't come across like you felt it was a given when you started that this would all happen that you would end up with other places and two mission stars for the hand of flowers and all of that it doesn't no i think if you open a business in your you expect to just open and cook and get two mission stars you're in the wrong mindset anyway you know when you go from being a head chef to then opening your own business in the first place it suddenly becomes about survival it doesn't come about what accolades i'm going to win or what i'm going to do it's actually about how do i stay open for next week what do we do how do we make money what's our gross profit margin where are we reinvesting what we've done so at the end of year one by the fact that we were still there was fantastic because you talk about your wife and selling breads yeah so 2008 was a very difficult period for us so obviously the recession hit we're a young business for two and a half years old three years old heading towards and we just bought a property for rooms so the hand of flowers now has 15 rooms but at that point we only had two and and so we bought a property next door to convert but as the recession hit we were owners of a property that hadn't been converted but the bank pulled the funding for it to be converted so we left with the property that we have no idea what to do with so we have to make that harsh decision about whether we pay for the for the conversion of the property and we build it into the two rooms and try and generate revenue which is what we did which meant that we had to build relationships with suppliers and people throughout the whole of that recession which meant that during that period money was very very very very tight I mean to the point where me and Beth were taking no money out of the business and the only way that we could survive that I could see it was that we would do where I would try and bake bread so on a on a Friday Friday morning we I would get up six o'clock head into the hand of flowers and we would do I would do a full be there from six six thirty and make bread do whatever I was work the kitchen move all the way through the kitchen all the way lunch and dinner then at about 11 30 midnight once the kitchen was cleaned down I would get a couple of Kenwoods in the kitchen area and make bread throughout the night Friday night Beth would come in at around about seven o'clock Friday morning take the bread and sell it on a little stall in Tamalo but obviously then it's seven o'clock in the morning Saturday morning so then I would just start through working the Saturday so we work all the way through to the Saturday so from Friday morning at six o'clock through to Saturday night about midnight I would be at the hand of flowers doing like a 48 hour class shift I mean yeah I mean but it is the kind of at that period it was it was it's very very difficult the pressures that the business is under are immense and huge and you have responsibility to staff and to people and to it's everything you've got every single penny you've invested is there and the only way that you're going to live is by fighting for it so now I reflect back on it and would be fully prepared to do exactly the same thing again now but when you speak to many other people that have businesses and run their own businesses irrespective whether it's in hospitality or whether it's it doesn't matter a building firm whether it's an accountancy whether it's what if you have your own business there are people that are doing 24 hour shifts trying to make their business work that at some point any business that stood a length of time say 15 years at some point somewhere the owners have to do something that goes above and beyond what is deemed as normal into and so I love that period when I look back at it I love the fact that we did it we made it work we get through the other side and I know that we can do it all over again if we need to but it is one of those you look at it and think yeah I mean it's there have been some very difficult times during that period I suppose often those things are things that make something more special and mean so much because you especially when you're doing it with your wife you're really kind of getting through it yeah together yeah we already have one mission star at that point we did yes yeah we so mission star not necessarily go on ticket absolutely mission stars are not going to mission stars are they're fantastic for in terms of what they do is they help put a level of recognition for a guest and a consumer point of view that they go okay this this is a level that should be good but then you have to match that standard week in week out day in day out service each service lunch and dinner and that creates an added pressure and mission stars don't mean you just charge loads of money mission star restaurants are expensive because the ingredients expensive and the staff that you are cooking it are professional they're not you know they are they are people that use it as a it's their career it's their it's their life and their livelihood so all of this is an added cost to your experience that you should get when you eat in the mission star restaurant people should make you feel comfortable and have a lovely time you should go away just going that was really nice and that's the way that it should be and that's all those things cost money because they all have touch points with human beings whether it's the ingredients that you're buying or purchasing they will come from a person that has grown it or somebody that's looked after it and will have a real um a story of conveyancy that comes all the way through from start to finish and that's really important I think you touched on something which has really been a thread actually right through the reviews and I'm finishing up tonight and it's brilliant to you talk about that because it kind of brings together a lot of different threads we've had talking about food production systems and how separated we are really from where our food comes from and you talk a lot in the behind note and obviously there's so much to do outside of the book as well but generally in your work about well-sourced produce and as you absolutely beautifully said about people for whom this is a career and therefore need to be you know paid properly and appropriately for that and there's such an expectation I feel in fear about food being cheap yeah I mean the question that I get asked most or not the most but the reflection you get on social media or whatever else is wow that's expensive why is that so expensive or why is that to be honest if that's a question you're asking you're asking the wrong one your question that you should be asking is why is that so cheap so when you're buying something from a supermarket you should be going why is that so cheap because if you knew the process of why that is so cheap you would question why you how or why you're buying it in the first place if you understood the process of how you've got a chicken breast for 70p that what you're going to ask about the chicken the process the understanding the water like all of those sort of things that it's the wrong way to be looking at it and and that's very easy to say when you're in that when we're in the food world and we understand it and you say it and it can almost be seen as slightly snobbish but it's not food snobbery it is an understanding of the industry you know when you go we're not inflating prices just because the price it is is because we have an understanding of why you know the chicken this chicken that we're using has lived a lot longer which means that it's had to be looked after a lot more it's eaten a lot more feed and it's man hours over a lot more which hopefully conveys into a meal that tastes percentagely better and all of those sort of touchpoints are really really important so yeah the question shouldn't be about why is it so expensive the question should always be why is that so cheap yeah I wish it were but do you feel Tom that that attitude is shifting that people are beginning to ask that's slightly other questions I think people were beginning to start asking that I think people were beginning to look at where food was coming from and have an understanding I think at the beginning of the situation that we're all in now I think there was a process where people were cooking from home and then started enjoying ingredients and ordering from people that couldn't go out to restaurants we're looking at the suppliers that we were getting things from and supporting them which is you know second tier in a food chain that is really important but I do fear now that throughout the whole of lockdown plastics it was an example right we were very worried about plastics we were very worried about seeing we use plastic what's going on the moment lockdown here plastic came out the window it doesn't matter it really didn't matter whatever packaging was coming in for whatever you wanted plastic and however we're now looking back okay no no no we need to readjust again you know it's been six months we're now looking at not plastics we're looking at recyclable and car hold and whatever else however we're going to use it but I also fear that now as we hit a point where people are much more worried about money at the beginning of lockdown there's a furlough scheme where people are being paid 80 cents and it's all working quite nicely and everything is coming under control and everyone isn't in fear of their livelihood they go okay we're all in this together right now though where it's quite fractured and disjointed and people are quite concerned about their their futures or their livelihood or their families or whatever I do think that budgetary meals and the cost of ingredients will start creeping back into people's psyche of actually I know that is more expensive because it's got all of that but maybe the ethics come out a little bit because they're trying to protect the system and the money that they have so I think it may we may take a step backwards before we can move forward again I think that's right I certainly felt at the beginning of Covid situation in spring that we had a moment where people were more interested in everyone where their food came from but then as you completely rightly say other factors then sort of really kind of used it's just not simple it really isn't that easy and it really isn't that simple I'm with you know it would be lovely if you just say well this is how to do it everyone should just buy the best chicken you know you should just buy however what you what you should be doing and I've never been one to say everyone is just buy organic free-range chickens that's it that have been you know they're a minimum of 18 weeks old and all that like for me it's not if you're you know if you're a single parent with two kids and you can only afford this chicken that is the budget cheap one but you're still going to roast it and you're going to serve it with carrots and you're going to do it with you know peas and you know you're going to serve a wholesome meal for me I go okay it's not about food snobbery but it is about the cookery and it's about the vitamins and the nutrition that you can get from it which is much better than necessarily getting a takeaway from a you know in a polystyrene box though so I wish it was as easy as to say this is what everybody should be doing everyone has their own situation and how to survive and how to provide a nutritious and balanced meal on a budget that suits them yeah and the word survival obviously brings it back again to what it's talked to you about the wider hospitality and just being restaurants and things but let's let's jump back to the hands and flowers for now but we definitely will come back and was watching and thinking why aren't we talking about restaurants and everything that's happening now but we will we will and second Michelin star came what for you Tom is difference maybe for yourself but maybe more broadly as well between one star cook and two star cook. To be honest I don't really know listen I can't no one can tell you exactly what it is to be what it takes to win two Michelin stars all I can tell you is about our journey in the way that we have got to that level and it was a point of we achieved one star after 10 months of being open and I've maintained to be fair I've maintained a Michelin star in a restaurant before for two guides so when I sent my CV to Michelin with the covering letter saying this is where I am and they came and inspected me inspected at least twice in that first year didn't the car inspectors didn't the inspectors car break down yeah the inspector got broken into broken into yeah it was part in our car park and we didn't he had he had an announce and he left but then he came back into the pub and said that his car had been broken into and his laptop say when a great store isn't as well I know so Beth went out to see and look after the car and sweep up the glass from the car park and then all over the back seat was his Michelin had his paper so then she was like oh I mean it was like and now you know who I am and then it was like so it was one of those when Beth comes in the kitchen and like it's just like a hot you as a chef you're going to melt down again great brilliant so but actually that was a little bit of a blessing in disguise um in a lot of ways because it meant that I was very able to have a conversation with somebody there wasn't necessarily as an inspector and a chef it was about someone's car had been broken into and the person who owns the car park that has happened and then it allowed us to have a bit more of an open conversation around food and around restaurants and around the pub and where we want to be at what we're trying to achieve and what we're doing and what they're looking for and you know it wasn't a blatant we want this this and this and this and this but it was a level of understanding of consistency that I understood from them I worked for Gary Rhodes um before I'd opened the Hand of Flowers and and the Michelin inspector cited Gary's food as being exceptional in terms of that Michelin-starred level in terms of the number of components on a dish you know he was at when we were at Gary was at Gary's and you get the way that Gary cooked was if there's three things on the plate and all three things are perfect that's all they've got to judge on and they go okay three perfect but if you've got those three perfect things on a plate but then you start adding a garnish of this and a bit of that and all of those sort of thing now all of a sudden you've got three perfect things but you might have two that are all right and all of a sudden that brings the dish down while it elevates it because the inspector goes those three things are great for those two rubbish and you start going okay so this is a case of what we can take away and what process we can put in to ensure that the things that go on to the plate are right and correct so then from our point of view my point of view it was very much a case of standardizing systemizing making sure that things will always be the same every single time and we go through that process and we achieved the star within the first year which was amazing but then everything we did was a reinvestment and a redrive of that process and a re-understanding of going okay this is where we're going to go this is what we're going to do this is how we're going to make it this is how we're going to simplify it but how do we make it exceptional and stand out that suits me and my personality and that question of where you get to a two star level I think is always about consistency and it's always about the food on the plate but I think at a two star level there is very much a level of understanding that you could tell so there's 20 I don't know 22 25 two mission star restaurants up and down the country and I think pretty much if you put 20 pictures 25 pictures of each chef's food you would be able to tell quite closely who's chef which is the chef that's cooked that food without yeah I think you would be able to see a sap bain style dish a croquette style dish a Daniel Clifford dish a Brett Grahame dish a Nathan Outlaw dish Tom Carrey's dish a Mark Perchard dish you know all of the I think you'd be able to from that point all of a sudden then it becomes not just great mission star cookery it becomes great mission star cookery with a personality that is focused on that chef and I think that is where the difference becomes one and two and then two to three who knows however I'm an eating in three-star restaurants there is there is a very something very special about them that is just next level from everything there's a there's kind of like a magic or that sits around and there's many two-star restaurants that have that that are well on their way to that three-star accolade that probably already have it in everybody's heads they just haven't got it in the book and it's the same as many one-star restaurants that are at that two-star level that everybody is just it's just a matter of time you know they are already two-star chefs even though they're cooking at one-star level they will be they're the cook who is two-star they they just will they will get there it's just that matter of time so interesting and I think that comes across in some recipes well all the recipes because I was reading it and loved all the stories and everything kind of go really build up about the journey into it and then you get into the recipes and you go wow this is incredible food you expect it to be incredible food but this is incredible and then you look at the recipes themselves and you're really helping people be able to deliver consistency in their own kitchen it feels yeah because you set it out so clearly yeah I mean I've got to be honest that's that's very helpful of the book designers as well Bloom 3 and Absolute have been fantastic in the way of trying to get this the recipes across in a level that is you know this is the eighth book that I've done and the ones before have all been for home cookery the home cook and the understanding whereas this is the exact recipes that we follow at the hand of flowers that are done by professional chefs at two star level so there are so many components and elements that go into each dish but being able to just circumnavigate the complete thing and just I suppose decompartmentalize each one and have an individual component is very important then for you to be able to for for the home cook to be able to make I don't know a beer cracker or the salmon mousse or a bit of venison chili that goes with something else but also I think for the professional chef where there's things that they've eaten or they see at the hand that they go that garnish would be really nice to go with they might take a garnish that comes from a pigeon dish and go actually that would work really nicely with the venison or that they can take components of what we do and are able to put it into their own context and their own dishes and that's very much how I suppose as chefs we all work there's no such thing as an original recipe no one has come up with something brand new like like it just doesn't exist they are they are movements and growth and understanding the way we are influenced by nature by methods by technique and by other restaurants and other chefs where you go wow that's a really nice idea where you see somebody do something but you think well would it be really nice if you seasoned it with that or put it with that and change you know you change the concept or you move it around all of those ideas they grow nothing nothing in here is original I think you're very generous Tom in acknowledging that because I'm not sure that everybody does acknowledge that quite so well and you certainly acknowledge it in recipes some of the recipes you are gorgeous generous by saying you've been splurged by by someone or there's a chef within the team that really sort of did a kind of what a puree on a dish that really kind of set you off thinking okay that's we're going to create a dish kind of around that yeah and you're very collegiate it feels in the way that you work with your teams but I think but that's the whole hearted honesty of it the fact that the Hand of Flowers is quite a big machine of a lot of people and a lot of components of people that've been with us for decades that have worked in the business for a long long time that have grown and adapted with it it's not just me there's a whole huge team of people there and every single person is really really important to the growth and the understanding of you know it says Tom character Hand of Flowers cookbook on however like the Hand of Flowers the business is much bigger it's not me it's a whole team of people that understand where we're going what we're doing and how we grow and it is really important that people get recognition for their input of what they do everybody that's coming through the door there's chefs that have been at the Hand of Flowers that have lasted two hours but their input is still like they give us a story they give us something to laugh about they give us something they're all they're all points of they're all points that make the business grow and understand and give it vibrancy and give it life and that is really important the way that the dishes are I suppose composed and comprised and and the way that they built up are through stories information understanding and it could be from an 18 year old commie chef who walked through the door and go my man used to met the roasting mints method that we use at the Hand of Flowers first and foremost that is then transferred to all of the other cookery books it's something that I learned from a half Italian 18 year old commie chef whose nan used to roast the mints for Italian-style dishes in Italy when he came to the Hand of Dillip the staff team and we went that's amazing what have you done that I just really like roasted the mints and you go that's amazing and then that drives flavour forward for everything else we do at the Hand but then so that process is completely open to learning and people should should rightly so get the recognition or the nod to inspiring all right the complete dish isn't necessarily them but that that thinking point that driving point that understanding of where we're going is very much a team effort it's collective I think there are actually seven pages of thanks in fact most cookbooks like thank you guinea pig and that's kind of it the publishers and stuff but you are really it feels terrible sentence it feels very heartfelt and it is such a lovely thing to kind of read and cookbook of this level with the chef or for your level it's fantastic um right on spot because the book is fit into um so it's starter's made in some desserts yeah if someone wanted to cook from this the iconic hands of flowers starter main dessert meal which recipes would they go for um starter and a dessert are really easy because they've kind of been on from the beginning and they kind of somewhat there's a lot of complexity that goes into the dishes now the way that they've moved forward in the way that they've grown but the smoked adic omelette is something that's been on pretty much from the beginning and the creme brulee has been on from the beginning so the the the lovely thing about those is when we were cooking them before even one emission star means that the level that we were cooking at then is is a two star for those dishes everything else maybe everything else that was with it isn't but at that point those dishes were and they've grown and been with us for an ages forever and the smoked adic omelette is a it's a play on omelette Arnold Bennett that comes from the Savoy you know it's not my dish however the the way that we cook it the thing the level that we try you know it's for ingredients is really good eggs it's amazing smoked adic it's fantastic parmesan we use as opposed to griere and i use parmesan because it has a slight acidity and a really high salt content which is really good which counterbalances everything it's understanding of levels of seasoning and then a glaze that goes on the top that is made using um kind of like a classic roux white sauce from the milk that you poached the haddock in so it's all about driving flavorful and a hollandaise so that's the complex bit but essentially it is eggs cheese smoked haddock seasoning glaze that's it and and you go okay that's one dish the dessert is cranberry day so again that is four ingredients and that is eggs cream vanilla and sugar and that that really is it's four ingredients except it's the process and the way that we do it and it's whole eggs which is really important to me because that whole egg right this is a this is a play on an Elizabeth David recipe so it's a classic really old french studied but it's whole eggs vanilla but you cook it to 82.8 degrees centigrade in a in a thermo mix or on the top of the stove and you know the fact that you can then suspend the vanilla as the eggs cook out is really important rather than it being vanilla cooked in a bain marie whether it sinks to the bottom um whole eggs are really important sugar content is quite low caramelized on the top really heavily to the point where when we first open you got a lock up and I say that my creme brulee is burnt I mean brulee is burnt mate that's what it's supposed to be do you know what I mean the idea yeah exactly and but that for me it's really important because that kind of that bitterness really enhances the flavour of vanilla and eggs quite often 15 years ago when we first opened a creme brulee something that was quite sweet and cloy and quite often you can still find it as a sweet cloy pudding that everyone just assumes that should be what it's like actually here you taste vanilla you taste eggs you taste caramelization and that is really really important to us so those two and then the main course I mean they're all quite complex and quite complicated but one of the first dishes that we had on and um does make an appearance backwards and forwards we haven't had it on for a while but it's the braised shin of beef and in the book it's stuffed into a bone marrow and wrapped in crepe in it and done whatever but when we first started off it was braised shin with a piece of roasted bone marrow a dumpling and a carrot and it is kind of essentially is the same sort of dish it's a it's a deconstructive beef stew basically so the omelet the shin of beef creme brulee and then definitely a snooze I mean you're definitely a snooze brilliant um Tonya talk about how your handling things like your various places at the moment with the situation yeah I mean to be honest it's a moving project we have to become as an industry we're very very good and as an independent we're you have a lot more um flexibility to move I suppose with fluid times and we're you're presented with lots of issues and complications and problems um I think when we first went into lockdown everyone just embraced it and this is it and you you were given this um you were given this blanket I suppose 80 pay for all staff that it was for our point of view is a team of people irrespective of how much they earn um we still pay we honor their salaries so there's people in the company that earn a lot more than £30,000 a year we still honor their 80% because people have outgoings that are exactly the same you know 80% if you have a mortgage in kids and and you know your your weekly or monthly outgoings are still 80% of that it doesn't matter if you're earning 30 grand or 100 grand it's still you know you live your life to however much you earn so we honored um for that process all the members of staff are there um we whatever what we think was the first storm you'll then encourage to kind of take loans and move to get their business reopened which many small independents have had to borrow a lot of money for us to be able to reopen um and open with a massive positivity for July the 4th where um particularly Marlowe the coach and the hand of flowers has been very well supported great community wonderful space Marlowe is great it's fantastic um there are other issues within the London and the Manchester site in particular they're both very very difficult spaces the London one is right in the heart of town traveling tourism that's dead you know aviation is hit as hard as tourism you know it's open yeah we open on July 4th and it's it it's now beginning to struggle the attack to help out was very very positive you know this is where everything becomes very confusing it becomes it becomes very frustrating where everyone is in close to go out and then now you're then you're closing everything off and the food that was done seemed good what was done is that and now the problem is the tier two tier three level irrespective you're sitting tier two or tier three you as a restaurant were still open however you're being told your guests have to come from the same household which means that you're not doing very much in the way of covers so it all becomes very very it becomes a very very difficult situation for us to deal with but because we are independent we can act and you move fluidly you try to react to situations quite quickly we have contingency plans we have ideas we we're quite lucky at the minute that at the moment we're in tier one when it comes to tier two we have to look at what happens with bookings and we have to be able to react accordingly so but it is it is a very very difficult time for the whole of hospitality and do you know even more so for wetland pubs who are places that we love dearly that should be supportive wholeheartedly however from from a government point of view you know there isn't vat reduction you know there was on restaurants and food but there isn't alcohol so if you're a wetland pub there is no support there then the 10 p.m curfew suddenly those wetland are under an immense amount of pressure and those those places from you know from us just looking at and just on a daily basis they're the sort of places that we all love going to they're the places that people like to have a log fire and a pint of ale or you know sit there and have a cup of coffee and enjoy but if those spaces aren't supported now they're not going to be there the other side of it so what kind of support would you be if you were sat here with Royce Johnson and Richie Soonak and whomever what kind of support would you be wanting to kind of get in the rooms we talked about financial support that is huge in terms of it goes beyond staff wages so at the minute the furlough scheme ends in a couple of weeks time but then by the time it comes to a point where we're now going if you are forced closure it's 67 percent of staff wages well 67 staff wages it's not a great deal it started off as 80 percent that's fine 67 percent suddenly because most people that work in pubs or a lot of people that are in restaurants or close to or near minimum wage the moment that you take that down to two-thirds of minimum wage it suddenly becomes very their phone bill isn't two-thirds their rent isn't two-thirds their car insurance isn't two-thirds their you know their living ability suddenly becomes shrunk hugely so there has to be much more to support these people but then in terms of the business if we work a business that operates around about 30 percent it's around about a wage bill so even if you're supported to pay 67 percent so that's 20 percent of your costs so instead of it being 30 it's 20 percent there's still of your 100 percent of costs going out there's still 80 percent there even if you take if you're in complete shutdown 30 percent food and alcohol is your cost you're still left there with another 50 percent of fixed cost now a business cannot be shut still with those costs in place to then expect it to be reopened so a huge huge amount of financial packages need to be looked at for the hospitality sector to get to the other side it's not just about paying staff 67 percent of their wage there is a massive implication and the problem also that we have is many small and young or operational businesses have borrowed money to get reopened have streamlined have worked efficiently to get to the point where you can be reopened where you can earn enough money to pay back the loans that you've just taken out which are personal loans they're not on business so they're secured on personal so now you find yourself in a position where you now have a personal loan and your business is in trouble and you've secured a personal loan to help the business survive so there is a huge amount of pressure and that's i'm using us as an example but that is 90 percent of the people that have reopened and that's where the stress levels are now beginning to rise hugely let's get to some of the questions from people who are watching us you said you'd answer anything so we'll start with the phone one and what's the best thing about being a person who says yes to everything and in what does it make and in what ways does it make life difficult for the chef and restaurateur the best thing about saying yes to everything is that you do get to do loads of cool stuff that you wouldn't normally like if you say yes to everything i kind of i try to get every meeting in i never no matter who it's with no matter who i meet no matter because you never know it who you'll meet after that or what it can lead to or where it goes on to and it's so fortunate we've done so many things we cook at rugby stadiums at football stadiums we travel travel the world go in to see all food related you know we've been Hong Kong Singapore Monaco Grand Prix cooking on yachts doing whatever showcasing British food in the States in in New York or San Francisco you know you just say yes to stuff and it's never about money it's always about the experience it's always be about their all life in original experience as which are amazing and the hardest thing about saying yes to stuff is actually trying to find the gap in the diary the problem then is becoming where it's just always trying to find the gap in the diary and then also protecting family life and trying to trying to put the juggling at the balance is that's most difficult do you still work mega hours yeah i mean yes more it's not as there's no structure in my life so i used to have when i was running and as head chef and cooking at the hand of flowers every single day there was structure you would go in that's what i do that's where i'd be that's where it is now with i suppose with multiple businesses and operational things in terms of like festivals that constantly get moved or things that you know different restaurants and different issues that are happening in restaurants books photo shoots interviews television program there is no days ever the same so yes i work a immense amount of hours and sometimes it will be every day constantly there every day there is always something and that's the same as anybody runs a business you don't never have a day off even if your business is closed on the weekend you're still looking at emails and you're still worried about your business so yeah i mean i am always i'm always working with and i find it sometimes i have to embrace it as exciting because i actually like structure and i like control so i have to embrace no structure and i have to let other people that i trust have the control so whether it is really hard do you know what makes it even hard so i've just changed pa so my pa was with me for nine eight nine years she's just left to have a baby okay so so i have a new pa who's been within the business for ages but is now building that relationship of knowing that she's making the correct decisions about so letting go i find the control of that but i'm doing all right so far very good um someone's saying uh lovely questions coming in though you're passionately in love shines on you but if you are not cooking what else would you like to do or think you might have done to be honest so i grew up on an estate in Gloucester and i ended up i fell into a kitchen it was very very lucky that the industry kind of found me and it wasn't about cooking but if i wasn't if i wasn't doing this i honestly on it so my wife's an artist is a sculptor and every now and then we have to take things around or come drive stuff around in a white van and i absolutely i would honestly white van rolled up newspaper delivering stuff man in a van i would do it i like i would i would like is it it's that sort of builder something like that that sort of job is where i'd be i'd be most comfortable i would however i think just because of the way that my brain works in the nature i like trying to make things better every day i would be like a furniture delivery man but i'd just be really good at it i would i would make sure i am the best furniture delivery man that there is i think this leads on to another really good question um what do you think are the most important qualities for a trainee chef's um commitment and passion and that's it it really is that simple um you should never ever worry about job title promotion um and you should never ever worry about what food looks like because there's so many chefs that come through that are instagram chefs right so they can stand in your kitchen and they'll do days with you and you take pictures of food and all the pictures look amazing and great pictures look amazing however if you're the chefs that we always know they're going to be the best ones when they come for a day on a trial and they come to look and they and they you know to see if they get we're going to take them or they want to take the job if they're the ones that are looking at the finished dish as it's being sent out they're going that looks amazing that's incredible you go yep okay but if it's the one that looks at the roaring green the one that looks at the beef though when it comes in it or looks at the art jokes or looks at the you know the strawberries or whatever else and they go wow those strawberries remain that's when you know okay this is somebody who's going to be good because they have an understanding of the raw ingredient not the pretty picture at the end because that pretty picture means actually means nothing it's only a pretty picture once right so if it comes down in front of the guest the guest of it everyone takes a picture of it isn't that great but one moment they put in their mouth if it tastes rubbish like then now the picture is ruined because they've taken a mouthful of it and they've got a whole dish of it not tasting brilliant so it should always always be about ingredients and the best quality for a chef always is is a passion is an understanding a willingness to learn and and and wants to know about the raw ingredient not the pretty picture at the end because instagram has become such a big deal it sounds like you feel that that has changed some aspects of how people come into the industry what they want to do and change the the focus yeah and it's very important it's an amazing tool instagram i think is fantastic it's been brilliant for the industry and it is really good for conveying messages it allows young chefs or anybody to be able to see different chefs around the world you can see what alexa tall is doing in brazil you see what rena is doing over in covenhagen you can see what you know someone's doing open ices or someone doing you know all the way around the other side of world in japan or australia you know and you you get you can connect to a world neighborhood of chefs and that is incredibly exciting and amazing and it becomes about travel and experience and all of these things enrich from a chef's point of view a chef's life but it should still always be about ingredients which i think ties into something which is that we sort of touched on earlier but maybe you want to say a little bit more um someone's asking in the 15 years you've been working in the industry well some years at hand of ours but much more than that in the industry um how people's attitudes to food change in the UK um i would say people's attitudes haven't changed there's supposed to be more people that become interested in it so the attitudes towards um ingredient has grown there's been you know you could cite lots of different reasons of why the food in this country has got much better i mean if you look at um 20 years ago 30 years ago you know if you go from food a british pub is somewhere where i mean the food is rubbish you know you know it's you're not expecting anything good now any of us would expect to walk into a pub that's got i don't know a far and ball painted door or whatever and you're expecting to go in there and have an all-right meal you're expecting to have a good fish cake or a lovely macrolesque or a really good fish and chips or something you're expecting at least a you know a semi-good meal from a pub 20 years ago you weren't expecting that and that's kind of grown because i think renae um um in Copenhagen over at Nome kind of that idea of produce coming from within that sector and that area suddenly became fashionable for chefs 10 years ago all of what renae was doing suddenly meant that in this country in great Britain we started as chefs professional chefs started looking at going hold on a minute why are we cooking all these Mediterranean-style flavors well what are we doing we're really good at curing and pickling we're a northern European country most of the time we wear a jumper do you know what i mean it's kind of like you know we've got great vegetables we're very good at smoking things we're ready with that that preserving process actually we should be embracing this our potatoes our carrots our sweets our parsnips our you know Brussels sprouts all the things that actually before we were slightly embarrassed about is now actually no no this is really really good and also we have four pretty definitive seasons that is the change that are exciting so that British food team suddenly started becoming very um proud of the food that it was serving Gary Rhodes for example winning mission stars doing steamsuit pudding amazing you know all of a sudden you're going no no no we should be proud of what we're doing so that food team has developed and grown and then from a consumer point of view programs like Great British Bake Off i think has been phenomenal for the food team because what it has done is it showcased that kind of post-war style cookery baking curing making your own cider or doing your own you know all of that home growing that understanding of where produce comes from or having to go yourself has been really good at that people there's more people baking it i mean there's so many people making cupcakes you wouldn't believe but that's but that is amazing it means that people are doing stuff and i think so i think the interest in the food team is absolutely massively grown and it's allowed us to become more and proud of our own ingredients that there was a certain number of chefs that we were already very proud of what we're doing but i think it's spread it to the wider public that just a just a slight switch in mindset that has then led us to be in one of the most exciting food scenes in the world right you're so often you hear people say you know the UK doesn't really have a a food heritage you know a food to be proud of in the way that someone like it runs or actually it would i always feel that's so wrong that we we just got it really wrong for a certain period of time but if you go back and back here we have wonderful food heritage we're saying that produce and really respecting the seasons and provenance of everything is we do but also this puts us in an incredibly strong position if you think of french cookery and if you think of Italian cookery and you think of spanish cookery you'll you will think of the dishes of paella you'll think of you'll think of cockavan you'll think of pasta and pizza and you go right okay that's that style of cookery in great britain we are a hugely cultural and exciting mix you know one of the best dishes or one of the most known dishes you know it's chicken tikka masala and you start going all of a sudden now we have so many things to draw on we are incredibly diverse culturally rich we have a wonderful food scene that with third fourth fifth generation pakistani bangladeshi jamaican but there is so much of a food scene that we can all draw upon that is british it puts us in a position where we we can do pretty much anything and be anywhere that we want to be within the world because that is still then british cookery and that that for me is incredibly exciting it like it really is all right maybe some of the ingredients we don't grow here we can't get kafia limes here or we can't get turmeric or we don't get but however the fact that that ingredient can be part of british cookery leads us with this fantastic foundation for us to flourish and grow yeah brilliant um are there any hand-to-plas recipes that were just too complicated to include in the book um no no there are the bookies we break it all down and if you were to look at it if you were just like going to have a go at one of the dishes on tuesday night you're in a whole world of trouble i've got to be honest with you think you're going to do everything you know you've got to remember that we've got like 18 chefs up there there's at least 12 one every day that we're are making and and they are two or three day processes the chocolate cake for example um it is almost a three day process from start finish freeze but spray with chocolate do you're not just going to go i'll make the hand-to-plas chocolate cake tonight you know and it's it's they are processes so we weren't not one bit of it if we've been frightened of this is the honest true reflection of what the hand-to-plas is but you can break that down so the hand-to-plas chocolate cake the torts bit the moosey bit you could make so that's absolutely fine it's just the whole process of putting it together so no we've it's it's it's everything that the book is about the hand-to-plas and the way that the dishes have grown and evolved over 15 years there's some dishes in there that very much on a one-star level but they were i needed them and wanted them in the book because they they helped reflect that journey of where it goes to to get moving forward and that's really important so there are less complicated ones in there but there are some in there that are like yeah yeah you i mean you're going to be brave going for this but i think it's wonderful that you're often offering people opportunity to really kind of get stuck in and go for it themselves as you said before it's really broken down so well and if you want to commit a lot of time in the kitchen and do something which is going to be completely immersive this is absolutely the book to go 100 you might need to invest in a bit of kit as well you know things like a packaging a water bath and a sous vide machine and a rationale oven and a and the list might go on and on and on however you know if you if you're feeling fleshed this Christmas and want to treat yourself there's plenty of stuff you can get and also you can just read it and go oh wow wow wow yeah or just read it love it and make a booking yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah very good season you did that one more good one nearly out of time but we're going to try and go for one maybe two more questions um tom do you think becoming a chef is still one of the professions where you're judged purely on talent and hard work rather than who you know what background you have do you and if you do think it's the case do you think do you see that continuing yeah being a chef is very much I think like being a professional sportsman that the the age you know it's quite a young person's kind of industry that you get in as you as you get older you get closer to being um you know more management style you know you have to get an understanding of what happened your the guys that cook in the meat and fish they're playing the game and it really doesn't matter who you know or how you get the job or what you do it's how you perform within that space and the better that you are at doing it the more understanding you have the much easier it is for you to progress throughout the industry it's very much the most beautiful and eclectic um diverse and brilliant industry but it's very much a case of if you are good at it you excel at it you will do very well at it irrespective of whether you can read or write wherever you've got loads of money and whether it doesn't matter what country you've come from you've ended up cooking here and you're a part of it you can 100 excel because it's the most embracing and eclectic industry to be in and then you use the word embracing a couple of times I think it's just a wonderful reflection I suppose upon the industry that you really feel that and as it comes across in the book it certainly comes across with you um so the book's out 12th of November yeah I think 11th 11th November 11th but you can pre-order now you can pre-order now and not only can you pre-order but you can get a signed one from Tom if you go on the British Library tab and order it um a complete joy of a book and a complete joy to talk with you and what a way to uh to round off the British Library Food Season thank you so much Tom thank you very much thank you thank you so much Tom and Angela I feel totally enthused what an amazing way to end the 2020 food season what an honor to have Tom Kerridge see us out that is just fantastic I have to say that we weren't entirely certain that the 2020 food season would take place because of COVID and everything that's gone on this year we are delighted that it did we managed to do 15 I think 16 events we've we've covered cookery books sustainable food black British food Jewish cookery restaurants we've done feeding children food banks we have covered a huge amount of topics with an amazing cast of contributors it's been absolutely wonderful we are looking forward to doing the food season in 2021 we hope we will be able to do it in person at the British Library I know Andrew and I would love that we would like to say very big thank you to our sponsors KitchenAid thank you so much to everyone who's contributed to this wonderful season and thank you to you for being a wonderful audience