Chef Steven Hickling
My passion for food started at an early age with the help of Granny. At just seven years old I was telling everyone that when I grew up I wanted to be a chef.
At the age of 13 I applied to the Savoy Hotel, London for an apprentice chefs position. At my first interview, aged 14, their advice was to get as much experience as possible and return for a second interview in a years time. Not a easy task living in Leicestershire during the early seventies.
Whist Bocuse and Guerard were already planning nouvelle cuisine in France; most restaurants in Leicestershire had not even discovered French cuisine. The best restaurant in Leicester at the time was The Manor in Glen Parva [sadly now a theme pub]. Working the weekends, helping with the prawn cocktails and the Tournedos Rossini’s gave me a good insight into my future career.
A year later after my second interview, and a visit to the kitchens, I was offered the position of apprentice chef to start July 1974 after my 16th birthday. I later learned that 100 people a week were applying for position in the Savoy kitchens and I was the last official apprentice employed.
The training and experience gained over the next 5 years would prove priceless in the years to come. Together with my distinctions in both city and guilds and in 1978 The Restaurateur’s Association of Great Britain award for the best final year student, I was now ready to face the world.
I rather foolishly in hindsight turned down the position of junior sous chef at The waterside Inn [the roux brothers were not yet as famous as they are today] and chose instead to work in the City of London. Many good chefs at the time took this route as the wages, conditions and hours were so much better together with outrageous budgets for the finest quality food – directors dining rooms were the place to be. It was not long before I was head chef of my own kitchen and comparisons were being made between my food and that of the well thought of restaurants in London.
In the late 1980's I moved to the Bank of America in Cannon Street, where the guest list for the dining rooms included President Carter, Dr. Kissinger together with several HRH and the Prime Minister to mention just a few. As I am sure you can imagine the quality and variety of ingredients I was allowed to purchase was quite fantastic.
New Beginnings
In 1982, at the age of 24, I decided it was the right time to start something for myself and consequently purchased a small Spanish restaurant in Shepshed, Leicestershire called La Casita. Changes needed to be made to my style of cooking, food had changed a lot in Leicester over the years, but Foie Gras and Caviar would not have been popular choices and portion sizes had to change.
I agreed with the nouvelle cuisine of Messer’s Bocuse and Guerard but was appalled with the way it was hi-jacked as an excuse to give minute portions by certain restaurants at the time. However it was a simple fact that my new customers wanted both quality and hearty portions. Recipes had to be changed and new dishes created - to succeed in the restaurant trade you have to be able to listen to your customers, very few arrogant chefs have successful businesses.
Five years later I moved on to open a smaller restaurant nearer to Leicester, inspired by working at Le Manoir aux quat Saison with Raymond Blanc in the time between selling and buying restaurants. I decided to name the new restaurant simply La Saison. Changing the menu every two weeks and using only the freshest ingredients in season.
Within the year I had my first Michelin inspection. I thought it was a joke at first, the inspector left his card showing a little picture of the tyre man on his card. He made an inspection of my kitchen, bade me good night and it was then a long few months waiting for the next edition of the guide to be published. I knew I had been successful when the local newspaper telephoned me to congratulate me on my inclusion. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was forced to sell the restaurant just 6 months later.
It was then that I decided to move on to Lincolnshire purchasing an old mill house. I now had a much grander style of restaurant at twenty five pounds a head, not extortionate for the late eighties but expensive by Lincoln standards. Food styles were now moving into the fusion stage and many chefs were mixing ingredients from all over the world to create some quite bizarre new dishes. My roots were firmly in French cuisine and its basic principles and rules so I developed and created dishes around some of the classics. My frequent visits to France and its wonderful ingredients inspired me to be even more creative but I always followed the tried and tested rules.
That same year I reached the final of 'Chef of the Year' at the NEC Birmingham with my variation of sea bass St Tropez and magret duck with a confit of shallots and figs receiving much praise. Although I did not win it was valuable experience and I dare say I am still the only chef to have competed with a broken leg in plaster [football injury].
Later that year I was again included in the Michelin and other good food guides and the year after that I received one star. This was quite a achievement for rural Lincolnshire.
Whilst it was tremendous for my ego my frequent trips to France had opened my eyes to a different style of restaurant. Yes the food had to be excellent, the French would not accept any thing else, but the atmosphere and ambience were much more relaxed and friendly - customers laughing and happy to be having a good meal with friends and family. So this became my goal to create a restaurant where food could be enjoyed without the formalities and
pretentiousness
of a luxury restaurant.
I opened the restaurant in a converted barn in North Willingham, just out side Market Rasen, with Sue along these lines: just the two of us working together with the occasional help from Sues boys 3 nights a week, £18.00 a head for a limited four course menu and catering for a maximum of 20. We were an instant success, booked up to 4 or 5 weeks in advance. There was always a wonderful atmosphere and many of the guests became good friends - in my view the perfect way to enjoy good food. Every village should have a restaurant like that. Of course a lot of the French villages already do.
En France
It was a combination of things that made us sell up and move to France. We had always talked about our love for the French way of life, the food, the wine and on discovering the Dordogne we needed no further persuasion.
I have gained even more experience and knowledge working in French restaurants and hotels. When you cook Foie Gras for 100 guests a day you soon perfect it. My only regret is I did not move sooner, however being a good chef in France is almost like being royalty.
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