Chefs: Nathan Outlaw, Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Port Isaac
One day a few years ago I experienced quite a weird and rather exciting coincidence - I’d driven the 100 miles from eastern Exmoor to Port Isaac early one morning in order to interview the famous, charming and highly talented chef Nathan Outlaw. The main reason for the journey was for us to talk about the forthcoming Cornish Food Festival, which used to be held in the middle of Truro each year - and hopefully will return one day in the future…
Anyway, when I got there Nathan - whom I’d met several times before - said: “I expect you’ll be wanting to talk to me about the big award…”
To which (being the useless idiot I am) I said: “What award?”
With that he pulled out an envelope which had just arrived in the post. Inside was a letter informing Nathan that his restaurant had just been named the best in Britain. Here is the story I sat down and wrote there and then, sitting at the bar…
A Cornish restaurant has just been named the best place to eat in the UK by the Good Food Guide.
Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, in Port Isaac, topped many hundreds of other establishments to gain the prestigious award - and yesterday its owner was beaming with delight shortly after hearing the news.
“You can’t get any better - it’s crazy, we’re just a little 30 cover restaurant - so to sit at the very top, I can’t get my mind around it really,” said Nathan.
“In total there are 100s of restaurants which are looked at by the Good Food Guide and they always compile a top 50, which is full of friends and people I know in the profession - so to be named number one… Well, it’s still sinking in.
“When I had my first restaurant here in Cornwall - it was only in 2003 that I opened the Black Pig in Rock - I couldn’t have dreamed that by the time I was 39 I’d be running the Good Food Guide’s best restaurant in Britain.”
Speaking at a prearranged interview for the Western Morning News , Nathan was asked why he thought his restaurant had topped the British bill…
“I think it’s partly have the combination we have here with the team. The key members have been working with me for over a decade and this has given the restaurant a certain amount of consistency you won’t find in many others,” he replied. “People come here and we recognise them and they get well looked after - we know what they want. So the hospitality side of it has a huge part to play.
“With the food, we rely heavily on the amazing produce that we are lucky enough to get here. It’s quite a simple style of food - but I can assure you that the work behind what we do is huge. I have worked out that the chefs here spend 130 man-hours on prepping the food each week before we actually cook dishes to serve.
“We open Wednesday to Saturday - but the chefs come in on Tuesday to start prepping. Why are they here that long? Because that is what it takes,” beamed the proud six-foot-something chef from under his red beard.
He said that the Good Food Guide inspectors were not known to his staff - nor did any restaurant know when they would arrive. “We haven’t a clue. They have inspectors, but they also take a lot of information from diners who write in. And the Good Food Guide has been going for 80 years - way longer than Michelin - so they really know what they are doing.”
(I’m a great fan of Nathan’s cookery books - like the ones above)
But for Nathan Outlaw, it’s the natural ingredients that come from Cornwall and the waters around the peninsula that are the real stars of the show.
“All the chefs here have a great respect for the ingredients,” he told me. “And that means - respect for the people who grow it or catch it. We are certainly not known for all these modern techniques you see in some top restaurants - essentially we are cooking to bring the best out of the amazing ingredients. And I consider we cook food properly - we let it sing on the plate,” said the affable chef who was being curiously humble for a man who just an hour before had been told his way the best restaurant in Britain.
“The fish is always kind here and right now sardines are kicking in as is the mackerel. We are coming to the end of the lobster season, so now we are going to see the fabulous hen crabs coming in full of brown meat - which means full of flavour. The flat fish is good at moment - and soon we will get the mussels and oysters,” said the 39-year-old who looked as if he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the molluscs - or any other fine Cornish ingredient, come to that.
