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| Prepping For The Day Ahead |
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| Sizzling Pork Burgers with Caramalized Apples |
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| Crispy Beer Battered Pollock and Chips |
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| The Orders Just Kept on Coming! |
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| My Handy Work - Placing the Figs on the Fig Tart. |
Ouch! I just cut my finger and a blister is
forming on my other hand. I’ve been cutting onions, chopping herbs and
scrubbing potatoes for hours. Is this what everyday in a professional kitchen
is like? I’m breathing in the aroma of caramelized apples, sizzling pork and
sage burgers, and roasting garlic…while the machine next to me vibrates as it
mixes the next batch of Foccacia dough. Behind me someone hurries past, balancing
plates of beer-battered Pollock with pea and mint puree and tartar sauce on one
hand, and a steak and kidney pie with puff pastry, parsnip mash and kale on the
other, together with a bowl of amazing chunky chips, coated with Malden sea
salt and crispy rosemary. Chef Kirk shouts to Chef Davis that the next booking
has just arrived – a table of 20 people!
It’s Friday lunchtime on a brilliant sunny
Autumn day, and it feels like the whole of Camden is heading here – to the
newly opened Colonel Fawcett gastro pub. And I’m in the kitchen having my very
first experience of helping behind the scenes. It’s hard trying to keep pace
with the experts.
The two chefs, Dorian Kirk and Rupert Davis,
have been working together since they left Hereford Tech College eight years
ago. Bill Granger’s Australian restaurant, Bill’s No.1, is on their CV and they
have been credited with the recent success of London’s Café Below –
(vegetarians look away now!) - they introduced a meat menu to the formally
vegetarian establishment.
At the Colonel Fawcett, the menu changes
daily, the produce is sourced impeccably and everything is made on the premises
– bread, jam, chutney, ice-cream etc.
There is so much going on. It’s
exhilarating and exhausting, and I can’t resist wanting to try every dish on
the menu so far. A fantastic a la carte menu is coming soon. Could they be
heading for a Michelin star?
If you want to get there first, hurry along
now.
The Colonel Fawcett
1 Randolph Street, Camden, London, NW1 0SS.
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