December 2025 - Neil Sowerby

East Neuk is unique – that’s why I’m dreaming of a Fife Christmas

Always, always, ‘Next Christmas we’re going to celebrate beyond the confines of home, that’s the plan.” And always we dust off the tree, have a heritage turkey (or goose) delivered to the door and I somehow defy frazzling in a long kitchen stint, where I inevitably overcook the roasties… etcetera.

A family commitment for the ages, it won’t be any different this year. Toasts will be raised to missing friends and a special one to Captain Smidge, the gourmet chihuahua, who left us in June 2023. We finally scattered his ashes on his favourite stretch of path above the Colden Valley on my wife’s birthday last summer (Champagne was involved).

He was always a Christmas dog (yet not just for Christmas). For various festive therapy reasons he suffered being dressed up as Santa or an elf, but we placated him with chunks of his favourite partridge or pheasant. One Boxing Day on our head-clearing amble to Hebden Bridge a daft whippet off the leash bundled him into the canal. He enjoyed drying off in the pub and being made much of by strangers. He made friends easily.

Which brings us to the East Neuk of Fife. Smidge never made it there. It was made for him. Our stay on that stretch of the Scottish coast was to be the perfect dog-friendly travel writing assignment. Then 10 days before, his 16-year-old heart gave out. We went ahead with our glamping booking outside beautiful Crail with his beautiful ghost by our side over four blazing June days.

It enabled us to make the most of the Fife Coastal Path, but we wished he could have scuttled by our side. Our favourite spot (main picture, above) was the tip of Ruby Bay – home to the impossibly romantic legend of naked bather Lady Janet Anstruther. Full story to follow!

There’s still much of the 117 mile path to tackle. Now that’s an incentive to return.

A December up there will inevitably be different. The latest plan, is to celebrate Christmas 2026 in a sea view cottage I’ve got my eye on. In Crail, jewel in this necklace of colourful fishing villages strung along the North Sea coast below St Andrew’s. King James II of Scotland described them as “a fringe of gold on a beggar’s mantle”.

Ideally there would be a log fire… and a couple of local lobsters and South African Chenin Blanc in the fridge. And, of course, the Captain’s spirit will be vividly with us. Ghost of Christmas Always Present (without the costume, I promise, Smidgey).

Just 10 miles separates Elie (closest town to Ruby Bay) in the south to Crail in the north with buses every hour if you want to walk some of the loveliest stretches of the Coastal Path without doubling back on yourself. Let me introduce you to Crail, Cellardyke and Anstruther, St Monans and Elie/Earlsferry…

A quest for the wholly Crail

This is golfing country. The two courses at the tip of Fife Ness belonging to the Crail Golfing Society, seventh oldest club in the world. It was founded in 1786 by 11 solid citizens in the Crail Golf Hotel, still there on High Street, offering a fine example of the town’s predominant 17th century architectural style, crow-stepped gables, often whitewashed. These, pantiled roofs and mature tree-lined avenues lend a very continental feel to the place. Given a royal charter by Robert the Bruce in 1310, Crail was an important medieval trading post, despatching cargoes of coal, textiles and salted herring to the Low Countries.

Gaze up at the weathervane above Crail Tolbooth’s Dutch tower and instead of the customary cockerel you’ll find the shape of a ‘Crail capon’. These were haddock smoked traditionally in a chimney ‘lum’. There’s an auld Scot expression “lang may yer lum reek” (long may your chimney burn), wishing you long life.

Wander down to the sheltered harbour along cobbled streets, taking in the colourful courtyard of Crail Pottery. Or approach via Castle Walk, which gives you the best photo opportunity. At weekends in season Reilly Shellfish Shack will sell you freshly landed and cooked crab and lobster.

Ancient Cellardyke and newbie Anstruther

A storm at the end of the19th century trashed atmospheric Cellardyke’s own harbour, so the herring fleet shifted down to adjacent Anstruther (pronounced Anster). Today the bobbing boats are mostly pleasure craft and there are two terrific tourist magnets. The Scottish Fishing Museum is a hugely informative portal into a life at sea that even today is fraught with peril We took coffee in its smart cafe as we awaited our morning Sea Safari with Isle of May Boat Trips.

From £30 a head you get a one hour 15 minute seaborne circuit of this National Nature Reserve, six miles out in the Firth of Forth, with informed commentary from the skipper. The craft, a rigid inflatable, holds 12 and hits some impressive speeds to add a thrill element, but the real reason to visit May is the wildlife. It has a history involving monks, vikings, smugglers and a lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s dad, but all play second fiddle when, as we did, you come upon basking seals, a cormorant colony and cliffs teeming with guillemots, terns, razorbills and the uncommon black-backed gull.

Star of the show, though, has to be the puffin (one collective name an ‘improbabilty’). These colourful, comical birds arrive on the Isle in April and depart by the end of summer; we caught them at their zenith, surfing the choppy waves then upturning into the deep in search of sand eels and the like. In the distance a real bonus – a minke whale briefly cresting the waves.

All that fresh sea air and spume had unleashed the inner gannet in us, so after disembarking we piled into the award-winning Anstruther F ish Bar. The battered haddock and chips were as good as it gets – believe the hype. It’s not the only Premier League chippie in town but, as elsewhere, the tradition is under threat. Read Tom Lamont’s quite brilliant East Neuk-centric long read in The Guardian.

Traditional pubs may be struggling too and in truth this isn’t good cask beer territory, but the Fife Gold was in fine, foamy fettle in the secluded garden of The Dreel Tavern, which dates back to the 18th century. As does so much of Pittenweem, next stop on the trek, the last working harbour.

Pittenweem is a quirky delight

St Fillan had his own version of a phone torch. His left arm mysteriously lit up, allowing him to accomplish his seventh century holy tasks in his cavern tucked into the rock face off Bruce’s Wynd, the steep descent to the harbour. You pay a quid for a key at the Pittenweem Chocolate Company or The Little Gallery on High Street. St Fillan’s Cave is a mite underwhelming like Father Ted’s Holy Stone of Clonrichert, but overall I liked the understated charm of Pittenweem, a great place to putter around. Life beyond fish and chips? Gentrification on the way? The smart harbour front Dory Bistro and Gallery is one of the Good Food Guide’s 100 Best Local Restaurants.

Or if you just fancy a picnic pick up some cheese from the St Andrews Cheese Company from their farm just outside the town. Their Anster cheese is handmade to a traditional recipe using unpasteurised milk from their Friesian Holstein cows.

Salt of the earth on the way to St Monans

In the 1790S, salt was Scotland’s third-largest export, after wool and fish. Local coal heated the evaporation pans where sea water was boiled into sea salt. At the end of the mile and a half coastal walk from Pittenweem you encounter the St Monans Windmill, used to pump up the water. Almost ancient history now – the industry was abandoned in 1823. The settlement itself takes its name from a 9th century hermit who landed here and built a cell; later a Dominican monastery sprang up and, tucked into the cliffs above the waves, the Auld Kirk (1256) is among Scotland’s most ancient churches. We were keen to see the famous 18th-century model of a ship suspended from its ceiling, but the great door was locked.

The multi-coloured seafront of St Monans proper is very much of today, a perfect seaside retreat. A good place to chill with small plates, coffee and craft beer is the Giddy Gannet, but the real foodie draw is East Pier Smokehouse on the quayside, painted a vivid powder blue. To sit on its top deck terrace with the sea lapping behind you and a large whole lobster to yourself (great value at £50) is crustacean bliss. It comes in a cardboard box with proper chips or potato salad and implements to lever the tastiest bits from crevices. Chef patron James Robb smokes seafood Scandinavian-style in the downstairs kitchen and everything on the menu is desirable, down to the well-chosen wine and beer offering.

Elie – here life really is a beach

What saves St Monans from the crowds is the lack of a beach. Ellie makes up for it with its sweeping demerara coloured strand that attracts the affluent weekenders up from Edinburgh. You can appreciate its vastness from the terrace of the excellent Ship Inn. More sheltered is Ruby Bay on the approach. This was where in the 1770s the beautiful Lady Janet Anstruther indulged in naked bathing from Lady’s Tower on the headland (nowadays a gaunt ruin). A bell-ringer paraded through town to warn ’no peeking’ at this wild swimming pioneer.

‘Good walk spoiled’ and all that, the town and its extension Earlesferry draw in the golfing crowd to two acclaimed courses. My own personal magnets lie on the A917 coming in – all of them foodie, naturally.

First there’s the top quality Ardross Farm Shop (access also from the Coastal Path), then one of Scotland’s best seafood merchants, David Lowrie, on an industrial estate on the fringe of St Monans – it supplies Manchester’s wonderful new Bar Shrimp – and finally the food and culture complex called wryly Bowhouse.

Rising from flat fields, it resembles a gargantuan barn. The small food and drink businesses occupying spring into life mostly from Thursday onwards, though the impressive organic butchery is open from Tuesday.

On the second weekend of each month Bowhouse hosts a popular market with traders streaming in from across Scotland, but it is also home to regulars such as the Baern Bakery, Scotland the Bread’s flours and much more. Central to the whole project is Futtle organic brewers They run a taproom, vinyl stall, bottle shop for artisan ciders and natural wine, alongside a catalogue of DJs and performers. They also brew unfiltered beer flavoured with foraged seaweed or yarrow and a green hop pale ale from “fresh, Fife-grown organic hops, which went from the bine into the beer on the same day.” Coolest kids on the Neuk? You got it.

Where to have our Christmas feast if the dream comes true

The best place in East Neuk has to be the Kinneuchar Inn, which recently came in at No.2 in the Good Food Guide’s Top 100 Pubs. This whitewashed 7th century hostelry lies a couple of miles north of Elie. Its logo references the local custom of curling on the frozen waters of nearby Loch Kilconquhar. A much better idea is to curl up in the Inn and enjoy chef patron James Ferguson immaculately sourced, daily changing menu. Seafood, as you’d expect, is a star attraction. They are closed on Christmas Day but this year’s Christmas Eve menu offers the likes of Chargrilled Inshore Squid & Skordalia, Rotisserie Lamb Leg & Tzatziki or Baked Cod & Roast Red Peppers. Who needs turkey? Well, perhaps Captain Smidge might have preferred it.

For full tourism information on the area visit Welcome to Fife.

22 December 2025/by Neil Sowerby

Food, Travel, Wine

My Italian Food Trail: Peposo (don’t stint on the peppercorns)

Scuse, my Peposo is inautentico. It’s the chopped San Marzanos that are the culprits in this. Tomatoes hadn’t made their arrival from the New World when this famous Florentine beef stew first sprang to prominence in the 15th century, promoted by Renaissance man incarnate Filippo Brunelleschi. This and the tiled dome of the city’s Cathedral are his lasting legacies.

In a week’s cooking schedule that began with the daring spice fusion of two Gurdeep Loyal dishes this Peposo was earmarked as a bowlful of Italian authenticity. And, yes, as I was preparing it UNESCO designated the whole of Italian cuisine as an intangible cultural heritage.

Such recognition is never likely to address the tangle of Asian Second Generation food strands found across Leicester-born Gurdeep’s two cookbooks. I reviewed the latest, last summer, but it was from his debut, Mother Tongue, that I yoked together Curry Leaf, Lemongrass and Aleppo Pepper Chicken and Sambhar Sweet Potato Hasselbacks with Red Leicester. Neither was what you would call a shy, retiring dish.

Still there seemed to be some distant affinity with the work-in-progress Peposo. The Tuscans are reticent about spicing, just as they eschew salt in their bread, and beloved pasta dish Cacio e Pepe is rather subtle with the the Pepe. Not so Peperoso. Some recipes recommend insane amounts of black peppercorns giving a real kick to a dish of markedly few ingredients – olive oil, red wine, garlic, salt and stewing beef. Note, no onions or herbs.

Nothing but shin beef will do – discuss

A purchase of two kilos of Belted Galloway shin beef on the bone from Littlewoods of Heaton Chapel was a kind of cart before the horse inspiration. The roasted bones had contributed molten bone marrow – a freezer staple for lubricating home-made burgers in the future – and helped make a goodly quantity of beef stock, too. The chopped up beef was perfect for the long stewing required for the Peposo.

It’s a stove-top, pan-off operation where the Chianti (a whole bottle for 800g of meat) evaporates and enriches it. Even richer with the two cans of quality tomatoes, which I stand by.

Two stalwart UK champions of Italian food, Jacob Kenedy (Bocca di Lupo) and the late, great Russell Norman (1965-2023) go big on tomatoes in their versions. I went with Russell’s because his Brutto: A (Simple) Florentine Cookbook (Ebury Press, £32) proved an invaluable companion during last year’s travel-writing expedition to to the city. In particular it introduced me to the challenging street food tripe, Lampredotto for Confidentials. And yes I am now a fan of that braised tripe from the cow’s fourth stomach, doused in salsa verde, on a bun.

You won’t find it on the menu of Norman’s Trattoria Brutto in London’s Smithfield, but Peposo’s usually an option. In the preamble to his recipe (included later) he describes it as “a dish of extremely deep flavours and comforting textures. But it’s not a preparation that can be rushed. You need at least four hours, preferably more, and – as with many Tuscan recipes – it is improved by leaving it overnight. I’d love to be able to say you can use an alternative cut if you can’t get hold of beef shin, but it really must be shin. And you must leave the fat on – do not be tempted to trim. Your butcher will always be able to provide shin, even if your supermarket can’t.

“Additionally, the wine element needs to be appropriately regional. Chianti or even a standard Sangiovese, will provide much better results than a cheap New World Merlot from a petrol station.’

I used Lidl’s standard Chianti Riserva, Corte Alle Mura. Fort £1.50 more they have a Christmas special on, from the same 2019 vintage, Medici Riccardi for a couple of quid more.

Russell’s version is actually rather modest with its pepper input. As it melted together over the long stew I ground extra peppercorns (Kampot, of course) into it. The result was a tasty marvel, which I first served with Judion beans in a tomato and sage sauce, the next day with a creamy celeriac and apple mash. Accompanying it then, a Fontodi Chianti Riserva (a ste up from Lidl). Each time we scooped up the rich juices with slices of Todmorden-baked baguette Tuscan-style. In Florence they have a saying for it: ‘fare la scarpetta’, which translates as “to do the little shoe”

Brunelleschi and a Duomo built on peppery beef stew

The acknowledged birthplace of Peposo is in Impruneta on the Arno, 15 miles south of the centre of Florence, where the Chianti vineyards really start. At the end of September ‘Peposo Day’ is an important part of the town’s flamboyant Grape Festival with local cooks battling it out to produce the best version.

Why Impruneta? It’s all down to the terracotta industry that has been there since the Middle Ages. Its furnaces baked the burnt-red roof tiles used in the construction of Florence’s Doumo. The workers exploited the front of the kilns to slow cook in orci (olive oil/grain jars) poorer cuts of meat with pepper and wine for their daily repast.

On his Impruneta visits the Duomo’s architect, Filippo Brunelleschi, became a fan of this Peposo with its peppery kick and twigged how this slow food could become fast food for his work team high up in the scaffolding.

It would save valuable minutes if they ate on the job rather than clambering down and back up each lunchtime, so he ordered the Peoposo to be transported by wagon to Florence in terracotta casseroles, then hauled up to scaffold canteens. Not sure if the abundant red wine also winched up was a good heath and safety idea…

Peposo the Brutto way

Ingredients

100g lard (or butter if you’re afraid of lard)

800g beef shin, cut into small chunks

Flaky sea salt

1 bottle of Chianti or Sangiovese

2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced

2 tbsp black peppercorns

2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

Black pepper

Sourdough bread, for serving

Method

Melt half the lard in a very large frying pan and sear the meat on all sides until nicely browned. Add a few pinches of salt during this process. You may need to fry in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. If there is a dark residue at the bottom of the frying pan, deglaze with a splash of red wine. When all the shin is brown, transfer to a very large saucepan in which you have melted the remaining lard. Add the sliced garlic and the peppercorns, and stir for one minute. Now add the chopped tomatoes and the rest of the wine. Bring to the boil briefly, then reduce to a very low simmer.

For the next four hours, keep half an eye on your Peposo to make sure it’s not drying out too quickly. If it is, cover it, but the full bottle of wine should have been sufficient to keep it stew-like. After four hours, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. The beef shin will have disintegrated somewhat and become stringy and soft. You can encourage this further with some hearty wooden-spoon action. If it hasn’t, leave it longer. Or you could let it cool and leave it covered overnight. Then give it another 30 minutes on a medium heat the next day.

Serve with hunks of sourdough or unsalted Tuscan bread.

19 December 2025/by Neil Sowerby

Food, Restaurants, Travel

Hrishi Desai – what makes this great Cumbrian-based chef patron tick?

It was my first visit to the Farlam Hall hoterl near Brampton in Cumbria. For, of all things, a one-night-only 14-course dinner collab with Carlisle-based crime writer MW Craven. For it chef patron Hrisikesh Desai created dishes inspired by plot elements in the best-selling Washington Poe book series. Craven’s table-side commentary was illuminating, the whoe menu astonishingly playful and inventive.

You could see why, after just two years of Hrishi in situ, the accolades are building. In the recent Condé Nast Johansens Awards Farlam’s Cedar Tree was named UK Restaurant of the Year, while in the Top 50 Boutique Hotels list the Hall has just leapt 25 places to No.11, only five spots behind Lakes game changer Gilpin. That was Hrishi Desai’s previous Cumbrian billet, where he gained his first star for its SPICE restaurant. Cedar Tree’s was awarded within a year of his arrival.

To confirm Cedar Tree’s status, the globally influential La Liste Top 1000 Restaurants has ranked it among the UK’s best. Easy to see why on the evidence of our meal. I caught up with Indian-born, much-travelled Hrishi to quiz him on the success of his Cumbrian bolthole…

Hrishi, the whole ‘Murder Mystery and Michelin Stars’ event was sheer joy. How important is that sense of playfulness in the kitchen?

“Playfulness in cooking is incredibly important to me. It brings something fresh and memorable to the dining experience — something a guest will truly never forget. It also gives us the freedom to bend the traditional rules of gastronomy and bring to life ideas that might otherwise seem too unusual to attempt.

“Take the ‘Spaghetti alla Vongole’ pudding, for example. Deliberately designed to challenge expectations — sweet spaghetti, passion fruit cream, and a classic chocolate mousse re-imagined in the shapes of shells, conches, and clams. Or the ‘Severed Fingers’, a herb butter shaped like fingers. Serving something like that requires courage, but it also sparks curiosity and delight.

“At Farlam Hall, almost 54 per cent of our diners return, and a big part of that is their enjoyment of this playful approach to food. They appreciate that while we’re rooted in a classic country house style of cooking, we elevate it with global influences — spices from around the world, Japanese marination techniques, European fermentation skills, and more.

“We always aim to be different, but never at the expense of the fundamentals. No matter how playful the presentation or concept becomes, our core goal remains the same: solid, skilful cooking with real depth and craftsmanship on the plate.”

Local produce is on every chef’s lips. Sometimes it’s lip service. From the evidence of our dinner, it is very important to you. What does Cumbria bring to the plate?

“Cumbria is blessed with some truly exceptional producers, and for us it feels completely natural to use their ingredients as much as possible. The region offers an extraordinary range of produce — Herdwick lamb, rare-breed pork, artisan cheeses, incredible dairy, heritage vegetables, and foraged ingredients that change with the seasons.

“We’re also surrounded by farmers, growers and makers who are deeply committed to their craft, many of whom have skills passed down through generations. That depth of knowledge and care is part of what makes Cumbrian produce so special.

“I would also like to see our own kitchen garden reach its full potential, because we already use so much of what it produces. Being able to pair what we grow here with what our neighbouring producers craft — from honey and rapeseed oil to organic vegetables, game, cured meats and small-batch spirits — creates a uniquely Cumbrian identity on the plate.

“Ultimately, Cumbria’s natural beauty is reflected in the quality of its ingredients. The landscape shapes the flavour: clean air, rich pasture, rugged coastline and forests full of wild herbs and mushrooms. For us, cooking in Cumbria means tapping into this landscape and celebrating it. It’s not about paying lip service to ‘local produce’ — it’s about letting the region speak for itself through the food.”

Hearing all this, it seems you are really settled here. What are your ambitions for Farlam Hall and your own career?

“Farlam Hall means a great deal to me. It has taken a huge amount of hard work to restore it to its former glory, and we have no intention of stopping there. Karen and I believe that Farlam should stand as a beacon of classic British hospitality — one of the true ‘go-to’ destinations in the North West of England.

“We have ambitious plans for the future, and we hope that the financial climate will allow us to bring them to life. These include developing a cookery school, creating a dedicated treatment space for yoga, sound therapy and meditation, adding a few more rooms, and opening a second restaurant.

“For me personally, this feels like just the beginning. Farlam Hall is a long-term project that we want to keep growing, refining and elevating. The aim is not only to strengthen the hotel’s reputation, but also to continue evolving in our own career through creativity, innovation and a commitment to excellence, supporting the team and local community.”

Which chefs have been your main influences? Your own Indian heritage is obviously important but the traces are restrained. Is that the aim?

“There are many chefs who have influenced me throughout my career. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet most of them — including the Roux family, Thomas Keller, Hywel Jones (whom I worked with for almost 12 years), Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay. I also draw a lot of inspiration from the new generation of British chefs such as Mark Birchall, Lisa Allen and Adam Smith, whose creativity constantly pushes boundaries.

“Across Europe, chefs like Hélène Darroze, Anne-Sophie Pic, Olivier Roellinger, Björn Frantzén and Rasmus Kofoed have shaped my thinking through their subtlety, precision and ability to create deeply memorable dining experiences.

As for my Indian heritage, it is a big part of me. You’ll always find a gentle thread of Indian-Asian influence in my food, and that subtlety is very much intentional. What I don’t want is to be labelled as a chef creating Indian fine dining or ‘progressive Indian’cuisine — that’s not what I’m doing. Instead, I’m drawing on my roots in a way that complements the broader culinary style we aim for at Farlam Hall.”

Just before our recent dinner at Farlam I saw that you had been away in Mexico on a 10 day Roux Brothers Scholarship trip, where he and fellow alumni accompanied Michel and Alain Roux. Can we expect that experience to impact on your menus?

“I found that Mexican food — and its culture — has a surprising amount in common with Indian cuisine. So travelling through the Yucatán and discovering those parallels in flavour wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was incredibly inspiring. I brought back a range of Mexican chillies, and we’ve already started experimenting with them in the kitchen. I’m sure you’ll begin to see subtle touches of Mexico appearing in some of our dishes over the coming months.

“One of the biggest revelations for me was the Mexican mole (a dark stew). The depth and complexity of its flavours were extraordinary, and recreating it here will be a real challenge — but one I’m excited about. I think a refined version of mole could pair beautifully with game birds or robust, meaty fish. It’s definitely something we’ll be exploring further.

I have to ask. What are the big challenges ahead for hospitality with precious little positive support from government?

“This is a question that opens Pandora’s box for me, because it touches on something that genuinely frustrates many of us in hospitality. I appreciate that any government faces enormous pressures and competing priorities, and we do have to allow space for that. But at the same time, when respected business leaders across hospitality, farming, tourism and the wider supply chain are repeatedly warning that the sector is on its knees, it becomes difficult to understand why these voices aren’t being heard.

“Hospitality is one of the UK’s biggest employers. It supports local economies, revives rural communities, sustains farmers and independent producers, and brings millions of visitors to regions like Cumbria. Yet rising costs, staffing shortages, and an inflexible tax framework are putting businesses under impossible pressure.

“When energy bills for small hotels resemble those of industrial facilities, when there is no cut in VAT rates for the sector, when recruitment rules don’t reflect the reality of rural workforces something is fundamentally out of sync with the real world.

What would you like to see done?

• A realistic VAT structure for hospitality – a lot to learn from some of our European neighbours or emerging power houses like India who have reduced the VAT to encourage growth.

• Long-term relief or reform on business rates.

• Practical solutions to staffing shortages, especially in rural areas

• Support for British farmers and producers facing the same inflationary pressures we are

• Incentives for training, apprenticeships and skills development,

• Encouragement for sustainable, regionally focused food systems.

“These are not radical ideas — they are common sense. They protect jobs, strengthen local supply chains and ensure that Britain’s hospitality sector, one of the most culturally and economically important industries we have, doesn’t collapse under its own weight.”

Who is Hrishikesh Desai?

Obviously, one of the UK’s outstanding creative chefs, now also overseeing a country house hotel, Farlam Hall, that is setting the bar higher and higher while retaining a dedication to homely hospitality rare among Relais & Chateaux establishments.

A key to his culinary is that Roux Scholarship award back in 2009. The most recent fruit was that educational expedition to Yucatán and Mexico City but the initial impetus from joining that elite culinary brotherhood was to launch him towards running his own kitchen.

He had been encouraged to enter by his then boss/mentor Hywel Jones at Lucknam Park. He had worked himself up from commis to head chef over a decade at this Michelin-starred exemplar outside Bath.

He had arrived there from France, itself quite some distance from his birthplace, Poona in Maharashtra. In his late teens he had won a scholarship to study restaurant management at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon. It was in that most gastronomical of cities he found his true vocation – not fron of house but behind the stove.

He recalled: ’It sounds crazy to say but it all started with a crème brulée. ’I saw one being blowtorched and I was amazed by it. I think it was partly seeing that chefs got to use all of these cool gadgets but it also made me realise that if I wanted to fully understand this industry, I needed to cook. That was what made me want to become a chef.”

Fact file

Farlam Hall, Hallbankgate, Brampton, Cumbria, CA8 2NG. It is a 120 mile drive from Manchester via the M6 or there is a West Coast Mainline station at Carlisle, a 12 mile taxi drive away. Standard rooms start at £340 a night, deluxe at £465. Midweek rates are offered.

15 December 2025/by Neil Sowerby