Rick Stein — in the kitchen!

Rick Stein is somewhat misleadingly labelled a ‘celebrity chef’. In fact, with his ex-wife Jill, he owns four restaurants, a delicatessen, a patisserie, a seafood cookery school and forty hotel bedrooms in the small fishing port of Padstow on the north coast of Cornwall.

Two years ago Rick took over a pub, The Cornish Arms, a couple of miles outside Padstow in St Merryn and his latest venture, Rick Stein’s Fish & Chips, opened in Falmouth last year.  He has also become a joint partner in a hotel and restaurant in Mollymook, just over three hours drive from Sydney.

To coincide with Rick’s visit to Australia for a series of two hour culinary journeys, starting in late March in Perth, we thought it was an ideal time to have a chat to the man who spends his life creating and amazing in the most important room in any building – the kitchen.

I started by asking Rick about his inspiration for cooking.

“I didn’t really have an inspiration; I opened the restaurant because the disco that I was running in the same building was closed down due to the anti-social behaviour of some of our customers.  I opened the restaurant in desperation to pay the bills and, I have to say, I’ve never looked back,” Rick said.

I thought I already knew the answer but I asked: “What is your number one indispensible item in the kitchen?”

“Well, I hate to be a bit of a bore,” he said, “but it’s the cook’s knife I’ve used for most of my professional life.  It has a nick in the blade about half way along where I stupidly cracked a lobster shell.  Every time I sharpen it the blemish gets minutely shallower and one day it will be perfect again!”

I asked Rick to name his favourite dish.

“I have a large fish kettle which I borrowed from the restaurant some years ago and seem to have forgotten to return.  I love to poach a whole salmon in salted water and serve it with early summer, minted, new potatoes, a soft lettuce salad and my own mayonnaise.  It’s summer comfort food for my family.”

At KBDi, we place enormous importance on awards, so I was interested to find out Rick’s view on industry awards.

“I think it’s very nice to win awards, particularly for the chefs and the restaurant staff.  But I sometimes feel that people in the catering industry set too much store by them, particularly with hats in Australia and stars in Europe.  I like to put more effort into making sure my customers have a great time by providing lovely food and informal, but efficient, service.”

Finally I asked Rick about kitchen design and which elements he thought were most relevant in Australian kitchens.

“Because of Australia’s excellent climate, I think kitchens should be designed for eating inside and outside. I particularly like kitchens where the barbeque, though outside, is considered an integral part of the kitchen, not just something that you uncover once in a while.  I also think that a big island worktop is essential so that you can cook and prepare food on one side and your guests can drink champagne and chat to you on the other,” Rick said.

So there you have it, from the man known around the world for crediting his success to the simple observation that nothing is more exhilarating than fresh fish, simply cooked! Pretty straight forward and solid advice really!

For more information about Rick’s Australian tour go to www.ricksteintour.com.au and follow the links. Thanks to Amanda Buckworth from AB Publicity for providing access to Rick, and facilitating our request at such short notice.

Simon Hodgson
KBDi Director

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