‘If something goes wrong, there’s nowhere to hide’

Anna Tobias at P Franco, London

P Franco is a wine shop and bar in east London which has been home to a series of resident chefs. It’s a small room, just 16 seats, 12 of them around a communal table. At the far end of the table is a sink, and behind it is a tiny bit of workspace. That’s been my kitchen since September, when I started my six-month residency. There’s no oven, no fryer, just three electric induction hobs and two fridges – it’s quite challenging.

It’s the first time I’ve cooked completely on my own. Before this, I was the head chef at Rochelle Canteen, running both the restaurant and their catering company, and I do miss the team aspect. There’s something really special about a busy night with everyone working together, feeding off each other’s energy, and when it goes smoothly there’s a real sense of achievement. But it doesn’t always go smoothly and often, as a head chef, you get frustrated when other people aren’t cooking to your standard.

I left a year and a half ago to open my own restaurant, but that fell through. Since then I’ve been doing events abroad, and cooking on a freelance basis at the River Café. Then P Franco asked me to do this six-month residency.

The first week was quite overwhelming. The kitchen is open Thursday to Sunday, which means I’m working four double shifts in a row – I’ve never had that sort of lifestyle before. Mentally it’s a new challenge as well, as the responsibility for the food is entirely on me. If something goes wrong, there’s nowhere to hide.

The menu is short: just seven or eight dishes. I’ve structured it so that I’ll always have charcuterie, something with toast, a salad, a soup, a stew, one other savoury dish, and then cheese and pudding. My food is quite nostalgic. People say: “Oh, I haven’t had goulash in ages,” or, “When was the last time I had bananas and custard?” It’s quite simple too, but hopefully I’m doing it better than you could do it at home, and using the best possible produce.

There are obvious limitations. I was going to buy in half a pig, but then I thought, what am I going to do with the loin? Trying to cook pork chops to order on induction in a busy wine bar simply wouldn’t work. There just isn’t the time and space, especially when you’re heating soup and doing garnishes – and washing up as you go.

A while ago, in the middle of service, I was making bagna cauda to go with beetroot and the sauce split. Normally in a team you can raise your hand and say: “I need a little help here.” But there was no one to ask, so I was furiously trying to rescue it, and it just wasn’t happening. I had to admit defeat, so I served the beetroot with lemon and olive oil. It was totally fine but I felt a bit silly, as the menu said something else.

There isn’t much of a separation between me and the customers, apart from the sink and a small area where the bar staff have their work station. I’ve always quite enjoyed being able to see whether customers are enjoying their food, but this is even more intimate. Sometimes people are chatting to you and you’re thinking: “I’ve got toast on and my soup’s suddenly bubbling quite quickly.” But that’s quite a nice problem to have.

One service, I ran out of washed lettuce and I had five Caesar salads on order. Luckily there was someone I knew right by my station, a chef who asked if I needed some help. So I had a customer spinning salad while I was trying to keep up with everything else that was going on.

I think my time at P Franco will give me renewed confidence in my cooking. It’s good to get feedback as well. Someone said my goulash was one of the best things they’d ever eaten. When your food is so simple, it’s really satisfying when people respond well.
107 Lower Clapton Rd, London E5 0NP; pfranco.co.uk

‘Even the lonely moments have upsides’

Simon Bonwick at the Crown, Burchetts Green

The reason I work by myself in the kitchen is 50% because I want to work on my own and 50% because no one will work with me. I do crazy hours to achieve what I want to achieve and I’d expect other people to do the same.

I started off working in big brigades in five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants in London and France. I got kicked around a bit and worked my nuts off and did everything I was told to do. As I rose up the ranks, I would run the larder with an iron fist. I always wanted everything very clean and tidy. I’m very anal, everything had to be in its right box.

Then I started working in pubs and went from brigades of 25-50 right down to brigades of three. I always ended up taking over and bossing everybody about. But of course people don’t like it. I had a sous chef who followed me around for 25 years. One day he said: “I love you but I can’t work with you any more. I just cannot meet the demands and the hours and everything you want, I’ve had enough.”

Then I started to think I could run my own pub as a chef-landlord. I got all the numbers wrong and all the working hours wrong and I burned myself out in my naivety. After that, I went into private service for two years, where I learned to organise myself and work completely alone. But I had to travel a lot and it took me away from my wife Deborah and the children for weeks at a time.

When Deborah found out I’d bought the Crown, she said: “OK, you’ve got yourself a new pub, but you’re going to do it on your own because you can’t afford to employ anyone, can you?” For two years I ran it on my own and it nearly killed me. Some nights I’d be stood there in the empty pub doing a pretend service with myself. I’d fill glasses with water and wine. I’d imagine people at the tables. I continuously imagined the pub busy. I needed it busy because I had to feed my children.

My eldest lad, Dean, was working front of house at the Waterside Inn in Bray for six years, and then at Michel Guérard in Eugénie-les-Bains. Mum had to ring him up and say: “Dad’s not well and this is what we’re invested in, what are we going to do?” Dean came on board and said: “OK Dad, we’re going to take out 10 of the tables and you’re going to do your real cooking, not a goat’s cheese salad, not steak and chips, because I don’t want to serve that.” Within a year of Dean taking over, the Michelin guide upgraded us to a star and the business took off.

Six of our nine kids work at the pub. They’ve all grown up with hospitality, it’s in them, they’ve got no choice. Not that I’m any old Fagin or Scrooge. I have to be careful, because if there’s a temper, which occasionally there is, that’ll go back to Mum and I’ll be in big trouble.

Cooking alone is all positives. There’s nothing negative about it whatsoever. Even the lonely moments have upsides, because I’ll be listening to music, which is very important to me. I like that Michael Nyman guy. His strange music resonates with the hard week’s work, the slog, the battle, the arduous task.

We’re closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but we’re busy for about eight hours of those days, administrating the business, getting ready to purchase all the supplies, making sure everything is clean. Wednesday, I’ll go to work around 4am and get all the bread ready. The rest of the week I’ll work from 7am till 1am, and then just die on the bed. By the time we finish on Sunday, I feel like it’s the most beautiful comedown of a knackering week’s work. I’m addicted to it. I’ve really worn myself to a ragged bone. A piece of music comes on and I start bawling. I’m rinsed of emotion, there’s nothing left, and I love that rinsing.

The food at the Crown is a mix of the grand palace cooking of Carême and the bourgeois middle-class French cooking of the 50s, which ends up in the Elizabeth David era. It’s a real amalgamation of French period cooking, all stitched together with Escoffier and his repertoire de cuisine. After five years at the Crown, I haven’t even scratched the surface of my culinary estate. And I’m so far down the road now, I don’t think I can ever work for anyone else or with anyone else. I can express my own ideas without restriction.

There are huge financial pressures, of course, and you don’t expect to get any money out of it for yourself. But that’s not the point. It’s about spontaneity and munificence, about creating something that’s a legacy. I’d like to leave behind a story of true hospitality. I want people to drive by in 30 years and say: “Do you remember when we had that dinner in there and it was really good?” We leave a story behind. That’s essential. Memorable eating. That’s what I want to give.
Burchetts Green, Maidenhead SL6 6QZ; thecrownburchettsgreen.com

‘You have times when it gets a bit much, but you just grind it out’

Ben Crittenden at Stark, Broadstairs

Before Stark, I worked six years at the West House, a Michelin-starred place near Ashford in Kent. When I first started it was just me and the owner in the kitchen – a small team. That’s how I can do what I do now. When we had our first kid, my wife Soph never really saw me. I’d leave at seven in the morning and get back at midnight or later, and I’d see her one day a week.

A few years ago, I’d seen the place we have now was for sale. It was a sandwich shop, but I just had a feeling about it. I used to drive past every Friday night, just to see if it was still open. And when it wasn’t, I did some digging. The rent was reasonable, so then and there I agreed to take it.

I’ve never earned good money, I’ve always just got by, and I was quite tight. But I was struggling with my mental health, and I was very much in a “fuck it” mode. I got the money by going for a government start-up loan, but I’d agreed to pay rent before I got approved. Business plans, projections… I was blagging it the whole way through, waiting for someone to say “No.” But they didn’t. I hadn’t even told Soph that I’d agreed to do it before it was all signed. I wouldn’t have done that before, or now. I’m semi back to where I was: more conscious about money, and a bit more rational. It’s worked out all right.

The work-life balance is better. I work pretty much every day – there’s always something to do – and it’s hard but not as hard. I actually see the kids and I get three nights guaranteed to not be at work.

We’re open Wednesday to Saturday evenings. On Tuesday I do the big jobs: stock, sauces, prep the meat. On service days, I do the nursery run then I come in at 9am and make bread, prep all the garnishes. About 4 o’clock, I see the kids before they go to bed, and I come back around half-five to set up, light the barbecue oven and serve 10 people. Soph comes in during the day to lay the tables and get the wines in the fridge, then will come back with me in the evening [to work front of house].

It sounds easy, only 10 people, but it’s not. I do a six-course set menu, so it’s 60 plates of food. After the last dessert, we clean down, do prep list orders. We finish at 11.30pm, midnight sometimes. Because it’s all open plan, people get chatting and we can be here a while. On Sundays I come in and deep clean, and Mondays I try and take off but unless I physically go away, I’ll end up in the restaurant for at least an hour.

We opened in December 2016 and did about one table a night for the first month or two. It was a bit of a worry. But people liked it and it was starting to do all right. Then Marina O’Loughlin came, and her review for the Guardian came out in August. We went from having five email enquiries a week to nearly 100 a day. Two weeks later I got a Good Food Guide award. The emails went up to 200 a day, and in two days we filled up for the rest of the year. But with that came the no-shows.

In one week we had four tables not turn up, which is 25% of our business. We decided to get an online booking system and take card details. It was a scary time. We charge full price for people who don’t turn up. We get a bit of stick but since last January, I think we’ve only had two no-shows.

I cut my finger quite badly in February and had to cancel one night’s booking. And Soph was ill in September, so we had to cancel that night. If I’d worked somewhere else I’d have taken the week off because she needed me. But we were full, so I had to work. The next week, halfway through the meal, we had a power cut. You have times when it gets a bit much but then you realise that you don’t want to work for someone else so you just grind it out. People don’t realise that we are human – they just want their dinner.
1 Oscar Rd, Broadstairs CT10 1QJ; starkfood.co.uk

‘If there’s nothing booked, I’ll close and take a day at home’

Bruce Rennie at the Shore, Penzance

I was head chef for Martin Wishart in Edinburgh before I moved down here 10 years ago. I ran a few places but I wanted to do something personal. I’m here for 65 hours plus a week and earn less than my staff who do 50 hours a month, so I need to enjoy it.

I’ve just gone into my fourth year here. The place was horrendous when we moved in. Horrible carpet, net curtains, thin tables with plastic chequered tablecloths. The landlord said: “I don’t know why you’re so stressed, it’s ready to go.” I put the floor in. The partition, the kitchen, the ceiling, the lighting. Everything. But it’s tiring doing everything yourself. I do the washing, the ordering, all the prep.

If there’s nothing booked, I’ll close and take a day at home. It gives me a bit more freedom to not have so many people rely on me. I still need to give enough shifts to the front of house staff, but if I had to carry back of house I couldn’t do it. And what it gives me is ultimate control. I prepare everything from the bread and butter, through to the little fudge that goes out with the coffee.

I started with à la carte, then introduced the tasting menu. Now I do one menu, all fish. Waste was the biggest problem. The losses I was incurring were down to trying to guess what people were having, and when you’ve got 24 covers and five choices, the variation is huge. Now I know where everything comes from. Last week, most of the red mullet came from the Sprigs of Heather boat.

I don’t write a menu in advance. Without trying to sound pretentious, it evolves. I know what vegetables are going to be in from the local farms, so I have an idea of what my mood is for the week. While my training is classical, a lot of my stuff is Asian-influenced.

Not everyone is going to like every dish, and that’s what I try and say to people: it’s an experience. Quite a lot of people will come in and have a chat while I’m cooking – it’s awesome. I want them to know that I care about what their feedback is – and sometimes it’s good for them to realise that it’s just me in there and that it’s only food.

The feedback has been amazing. It’s going to take time to build up a core business but at the moment it’s tough. It’s so seasonal here as well.

The psychological implications of working alone are huge. I’m alone all day. And I’m an alcoholic and have had issues with depression. I have to keep myself very engaged and very busy, and sometimes take myself out to go and speak to the guys at the cafe down the road. I’d love to have creative discussions with people and that real bouncing of ideas.

I’m here five days a week. We’re open four in the winter. I also come in on the Monday to do the bins and the wine orders. I do paperwork at home and I can access the till system at home. And I’m always thinking of new dishes. My mind’s too busy. Even when it’s quiet and there’s nothing I can do, I have to find something or I don’t feel validated. And that’s years of being abused in workplaces, people going: “You can’t stand around doing nothing.”

I used to be quite aggressive, quite full on. I’m a bit ashamed about that. Nothing major, but I think I could have handled things better. Be more proud of who I was, not what I did. What I did was great, brilliant as a job. But was I proud of the person I actually was? No. And that’s why I’m changing. I care about the people who work with me.

Work needs to be a happy place. It should be conveyed through everything you do. Same with the staff – I pick them because they’re lovely people, not because they get the knife and fork in exactly the right place. I like it to feel like a bit of a family, because this is what I’ve got. It’s not easy. I’m three years in and the last year I still made a loss. Fingers crossed for this year; I’m quite hopeful. I didn’t pay myself a decent salary but I’m happy. I’m doing what I love.
13/14 Alverton St, Penzance TR18 2QP; theshorerestaurant.uk