hopkinsonqx_P&G 20/01/2012 09:25 Page 2

Interview

imon Hopkinson has had an extraordinary career in food. When he opened Bibendum with design guru Sir Terence Conran 25 years ago, he became one of the architects of modern British cooking alongside his great friend Rowley Leigh of Kensington Place and Alastair Little at his eponymous Soho eaterie. In 2005, his book Roast Chicken and Other Stories was voted the most useful cookbook of all time, 11 years after it was first published. Last year, aged 57, his first cookery series The Good Cook aired on prime time BBC1, elevating him to the dizzy heights of TV stardom. I've done television now, but only because I really liked the people who wanted to make the programme. When we had our first meeting I said, 'I think I can do this', says Simon. I had presentation therapy sessions with a lovely man called Ian Blandford who helped me

Simon Hopkinson presided over the stoves there. His understanding of and approach to cookery had an enormous affect on my fledgling career and to this day, I continue to be a disciple. Modesty prevents Simon agreeing with my assertion that he ran the most influential kitchen of its time in London, but he does concede something special was going on. When those chefs were there together, along with current head chef Matthew Harris, that was the greatest time ever in that kitchen for me, the best days of my life actually. It was a really good team. And, despite his undoubted expertise, its refreshing to hear hes not automatically brilliant at everything. He tells the Cheltenham audience that hes no good at baking bread and admits to me that in the past hes struggled with cooking rice. I always overdo pilafs. I never get perfect dry separate grains. Most recipes seem to have much more water than you need double

The Godfather of Cooking

He may have hung up his chefs whites, but Simon Hopkinson continues to inspire a new generation of young cooks, as Andy Lynes discovered
to be happy behind the camera; he was pivotal. From being relatively anonymous, Simon now gets recognised on the tube and when I first meet him at his sold out Cheltenham Literary Festival Q&A session at the Montpellier Chapter Hotel (where he also consults), theres a sort of buzz around him that can only be generated by a TV celebrity. During the three-course meal thats made up of dishes from The Good Cook including Roquefort, Pear and Chicory Salad, Marinated Leg of Lamb with Asian Green Sauce and Orange Caramel Custard, he proves himself to be wonderful company. Chatting non-stop about recipes and cooking techniques, our conversation is only interrupted by his need to nip outside for a crafty cigarette or two! restaurant el Bulli, and as an inspector for the Egon Ronay guide in the late 70s, reviewed every Japanese restaurant in London. I'm interested in every type of cooking, it's all fascinating, but I'm not one of those people that wants to get into it deeply and discover the thermodynamics of cooking or find out how something is made or grown, I'm all about the actual cooking, he insists. Its this fascination with the cooking process that helps make his recipes so reliable. Not content to let someone else take over he undertakes all his own recipe development and also prepares all the food thats photographed for his books. Writing recipes is very hard work, especially when you really care as I do about why something works, he explains. I never stop thinking and I really test things thoroughly. Ill re-do a recipe six or seven times until I've got it right! the amount of liquid to rice is going to overcook it, but I finally discovered that 100g of rice to 150ml of liquid if perfect. Its also refreshing to know that although the chef obviously appreciates the finer things in life (my idea of heaven is a plate of lamb cutlets with haricot vert and a chilled pitcher of young Beaujolais at Chez Georges in Paris he tells me) hes no food snob. Hes famously fond of Fray Bentos pies and has written about the joys of eating Crunchie bars. I'm always on the lookout for a really fantastic sausage. I love good-quality English bacon The Ginger Pig is the best bacon I've tasted in years, he reveals. Freshness is more important than provenance the nearer it is to being harvested, the better its going to be. The taste of a freshly-picked artichoke almost fizzes, the flavour is so bright. Freshly dug potatoes are like no other spuds in the world forget your varieties. Although Simon officially hung up his chefs whites for good on New Years Eve 1994, he remains a partner at Bibendum and is clearly relishing his new consultancy role working with chef Tom Rains. Im very proud of what hes doing at the hotel. We talk on the phone, we email a lot and I visit him. He comes to London and we go and eat at Le Caf Anglais and the River Caf, he explains. And, with such a successful career, he still says there's a book hed love to write, but is keeping the details quiet for now. He also admits he'd be happy to step back behind the camera. However, whatever the future holds, one thing is absolutely certain, If Im at home, I cook. I made my first dish when I was 13 and it never feels like a chore. Never ever.
Great British Food 97

Style and Substance

Hes just as friendly when we meet again a week later in the Coburg bar at the Connaught Hotel in London. Hes open and amusing but nevertheless weighs his words as carefully as he might ingredients for a recipe, as though preparing the best possible answers to my questions. So we go round the houses a few times in an attempt to define his style of cooking. Its based on good French principles I trained in a French restaurant straight from school. I still love those classic methods and making things like braises, buerre blancs and old-fashioned cream sauces, he reveals. But it would be wrong to label Simon (who has kept roast chicken and steak au poivre on the menu at Bibendum for a quarter of a century) as a traditionalist. In 1996, he was the first British food writer to champion Ferran Adrias now closed experimental Spanish

A New Generation
This rigorous approach has also helped inspire a generation of chefs who worked under Simon in the late 80s and 90s in the kitchens of Bibendum, including Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis, Soho, two Michelin-starred Philip Howard of The Square, Mayfair and Henry Harris of Racine, South Kensington. Simons pursuit of the true example of a dish and understanding of how it should be put together along with a pedantic nature that allows that to happen have shaped me into the cook I am today, says Henry Harris. Bruce Poole, head chef and proprietor of the Michelinstarred restaurant Chez Bruce in Wandsworth agrees. I consider myself very lucky indeed to have taken my first steps as a professional chef at Bibendum when