This was the last feature I ever wrote as a full-time employee of a newspaper - and it was an enjoyable job for me as I’ve known Mitch Tonks for several years and always like meeting up with him. And again - we’re putting the article up here on the website now because all catering businesses around the country can do with as much publicity as they can get in these difficult times…

Like the rest of us, top chefs come in many different guises - although the culinary scales might tip a little towards the likelihood of your finding an irascible bully or a prima-donna in some top kitchens. Devon’s Mitch Tonks, however, would tip those scales back the other way. 

If there was an award for “down-to-earth, sensible and intelligent chef of the year, who happens to be a thoroughly nice bloke,” then this well-known preparer of seafood would probably win it with wearying regularity. 

Not that Mitch needs any more awards. The list he already has rolled up in his apron would take up half the space we have for this article - although it is worth mentioning that Caterer Magazine and the UK Sea-fish Industry Authority have just placed two of his eateries in the top five UK seafood restaurants.

Given the list of hundreds of hopefuls, that is quite an accolade. His Rockfish at Brixham - located at the entrance to the famous fish harbour, is one of them - and Dartmouth’s Seahorse, where I met Mitch for lunch this week, is the other. And as readers may know, these are two very different restaurants. The expanding Rockfish chain caters for families who want excellent but affordable seafood in pleasant coastal locations - The Seahorse is a proper grown-up establishment (winner of the Observer’s Best UK Restaurant award) where the seafood dishes are as good as any you’d find in a top Michelin starred joint. 

“To have two restaurants recognised in the final top five for Seafood Restaurant of the Year is a testament to the amazing work that goes on in the restaurants every day - to the people who cook, who serve, who manage, support and promote what I think is the best seafood in the world, here on the south coast,” smiled an obviously proud Mr Tonks.

He has every right to feel proud. The lad from Weston-super-Mare came from the kind of humble origins where eating fish meant dealing with buckets of eels that arrived at his grandmother’s back door from the local drainage rhynes of the Somerset Levels. Eels that would be boiled and jellied. The young Mitch would run errands for his grandmother and return home from the fishmonger with shrimps, which he’d help to peel and put into sandwiches. 

“These simple shared pleasures were the first small steps of a food journey that would take Mitch to culinary experiences all around the world,” says the blurb you’ll see at his restaurants. “But home would always be the coastline of the south-west of England and the place where his fervour for seafood in particular would shape and resonate most profoundly.”

“The Seahorse is the first restaurant we opened in the South West,” Mitch told me as we sat down for lunch. “There can only be one Seahorse, but with Rockfish there are several. Now there are seven, soon to be nine. 

“It was our tenth year at the Seahorse last year. It was on old pizza restaurant and I wanted to create something timeless - a bit of a Harry’s Bar. I want it to be here in 100 years time - people will still be dining here - a place to eat and exchange conversation. To me, that’s the point of a restaurant. 

“Nine years ago we were thinking about creating a fish restaurant where people could take kids and eat really great seafood that’s not just fish and chips. So over those years Rockfish has really evolved - it’s not something we dreamt up over night - it’s taken 10 years to get it to where it is. 

“I’m a weird mix of someone who loves cooking and I’m an entrepreneur as well - and as entrepreneur I am haunted by thoughts of what can be. I see these wonderful seafood restaurants in the States on the Eastern seaboard and I think: why can’t we have something like that? So Rockfish is an attempt at that - mid-market, brilliant seafood. And now it’s gone on to be something that’s bigger than we ever thought. 

“The latest opened in Weymouth, which has been really successful. Then we will open Poole and there’s soon going to be one in Sidmouth. I think that having a fish restaurant in a location where there’s fishing activity in sight of the sea makes the whole experience much more wonderful.

“I also like to open restaurants and give opportunities - so where we open a restaurant there’s anything between 30 and 50 jobs. Quality jobs. We are creating something that has longevity. 

“Sustainability is a big issue - and the situation is getting worse and worse,” sighed Mitch when I asked him about the core ingredients for all his restaurants. “ One thing that’s amazing about the South Coast is - not only do we have some of the best seafood in the world - we have one of the best and most well managed fisheries on the planet. The fishing effort is small compared to what it used to be and there are all sorts of levels and quotas and controls. So my take on it is to continue using fish from small scale fisheries. But for fish that are harvested in bigger quantities we use MSC certified products. Within a year at Rockfish there won’t be anything on the menu that will not be MSC certified or from a local fishery. 

“What’s interesting is that at Rockfish we started off selling fish and chips with cod and haddock - but actually it’s less and less about those fish now. It used to be 60 per cent - now it’s down to 30 per cent. People are coming along and eating John Dory, lemon sole, that sort of thing… We write what we have bought at the market on the table cloth every day.  

“And we’ve set up our own fish business, so we buy and process our own fish - and more recently we bought a small day-boat run by a really progressive skipper. Between us we’ve collaborated on this idea that fishing can be sustainable - it makes the best of everything that comes out of the sea and it can be profitable for the skipper. When you have fish restaurants, to be at the actual fishing end makes it very real for the customer.

“It’s been quite a journey,” shrugged Mitch. “It’s been a roller coaster ride - but I don’t feel I’ve done a day’s work since I was 27. That doesn’t mean it’s been an easy - but when you find something you love, it becomes your life and it’s wonderful.”

You may have seen Mitch Tonks appear on television cookery show every now again, and I wondered by - being such an affable and eloquent chap - we don’t see him on the box more often…   

“We were about to sign a contract for a series at one point after I’d just done one - and the day before we signed the contracts I sat in this restaurant and suddenly phoned them and told them I wanted to be a chef in a restaurant, not a TV chef.  

“Now every lunch and every dinner the restaurant here is full five days a week. We also do a locals’ lunch for 20 quid - it means locals can come and it’s affordable. It’s their dining room - a good community restaurant should belong to the community. If I was on TV and you become a fancy expensive restaurant, it’s no use to the locals. Now they come here and they get value and it’s where they want to be.”

And as we spoke crowds were beginning to gather outside as work for the annual Dartmouth Food Festival was going on in the streets. “We are 13 years in with the festival now - it’s the biggest thing in town and it’s run by volunteers. The whole town is alive - lots of stallholders, lots of demonstrations, lots of friends of our come to cook with us over the week.

“This place becomes party-central,” said Mitch, reeling off names of famous chefs who can’t resist an annual visit to the beautiful harbour town. “Outside here we’ll be running a cuttlefish taco tall our sited plus some Chinese street food in the evening…”

I asked the 50-something year old if he never wearies of the hard work…. 

“Food is a joy,” grinned Mitch. “I totally love putting these things together. And I get inspired. My children are working here - the team here love it… They won’t see the light of day until the end of Sunday, but it’s what we all love to do.”

Mitch Tonks Recipe - Baked sea bass with roasted whole garlic, rosemary and chilli

You will need – serves 4

1 sea bass weighing about 1.25kg, scaled and gutted

A few sprigs of rosemary

1 small dried chilli

6 whole cloves of garlic, skin left on

Sea salt

50ml olive oil

½ a wineglass of dry white wine

1 lemon

To make

Put a piece of turkey-size tinfoil, about 70-80cm long on to a work surface and cover with a layer of parchment paper.  Fold over each edge so that the foil and parchment are secured together at the edges.  Put a couple of sprigs of rosemary in the belly cavity of the fish and a couple in the centre of the parchment.  Lay the fish on the parchment and crumble the chilli over the top. Lightly crush the garlic cloves by putting the flat side of a knife on top and giving it a thump with your hand, then put them on and around the fish.  Sprinkle with sea salt.  Lift up the edges of the foil to keep everything in and add the olive oil and wine.  Now encase the fish in the foil – it should be in a loose bag but sealed tightly, enabling it to steam.  Place it on a roasting tray and bake in the roasting oven for 35 minutes.  Remove from the oven and carefully undo the bag, folding back the sides to make the fish easy to get at.  Squeeze a little lemon over the top and give everyone a plate so they can help themselves. 

Mitch Tonks www.mitchtonks.co.uk