Hi guys, welcome to another episode of Chef Life with me Alistair and we're here today
with Nathan from the White Heart.
Hello Alistair.
So yeah, thanks for joining us today buddy.
We've been working with you for about six, eight months.
Correct, yeah.
So yeah, just want to learn a bit more about you and what you do and dishes and everything
and everything.
Yeah, so first of all I'll introduce myself.
Nathan's side bottom.
I'm the head chef at the White Heart in at Lidgate.
I've been here.
This is my second time of employment here and I've currently been back here now coming
up to five years and I've been the head chef since October 2020.
Yeah, awesome.
And you've got, I think your role for me really interests me because you've got like a fine
dining side to this place.
You've got like a massive sort of wedding venue.
You've got a country pub on within it.
You've got the Airbnb and then you've got dinner stones which is like Italian inspired.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fine, high and dine.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, but then you will be seeing all that and still doing like, you know, you're
always quite creative in terms of what you want to do.
I think that's really interesting.
Do you find it a challenge, the management of both restaurants and all the like sub-genres
within that?
Well, I'd be lying if I said no, but in life, food doesn't like a challenge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thrive off it a little bit.
Do you enjoy that as much as you do the cooking side of it or is it kind of like a nice mix
where you've got variety throughout?
It's a mix of everything, you know, because running two sides, you know, you can't be
in two places at once.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, you have to manage your team properly in a sense of when I'm not down the road
at dinner stones, it's running to the standard of how I want it.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, if I have to go and do a service down at dinner stones, this place has to run
exactly how I want it.
So, you know, it's all about having a great team behind you in a sense.
And when you came up, because you've learned off some really good guys and things when
you were coming up, so where do you start?
Where do you cut your teeth?
So, I first of all started my career at the White Heart as an apprentice when I was 18,
going through college.
And, you know, I started as an apprentice, I learnt loads and I left here as a chef
to party and I went to go work in a two Michelin-style restaurant called Mid-Summer House in Cambridge,
working underneath Daniel Clifford and Mark Abbott.
Oh, wow.
And I spent just shy of three years working for Chef Daniel and Chef Mark.
And then I moved back up north due to personal reasons and, you know, there was no other
place I wanted to go apart from come back to the White Heart.
So I came here and I said, you know, I'm just looking for a bit of a part-time job while
I've got a few things to start out.
And then, yeah, as the time went on, I slowly progressed up to the sous chef level here.
And then in October 2020, the head chef position came available.
So, do you think that Michelin training, like, do you think that's helped in terms of your
management of other stuff?
Well, I'm finding really interesting in the minute is it's unique to find someone like
yourself who's so into the food, so into the detail, so into the suppliers, but then equally
you're doing this like 10,000-foot view in terms of management.
Like, that's really interesting.
Because it's similar to our business in a degree.
Like, we've got lots of different moving parts and we're only a small team.
So then we're into it, like I'm on a van and then you're trying to manage something with
the bank.
You know, and I feel quite a kinship in how we both operate.
And I find it interesting the pressure you must have had on survived and thrived in the
Michelin and how you've taken that out and put it into here.
Well, for me, when you go and work in Michelin-starred restaurants, especially like when you get to
the two-star on the freestyle level, it really grounds you and disciplines you.
You know, there's no room for error.
You know, it's all about the mise en place, getting and making sure your preps are right
and making sure you set for the service.
Because if you're not, then you go down.
It's so hard.
And that's not nice.
So that's where the discipline comes in.
So I've taken what I've learnt from making sure you set, making sure the prep levels
are all OK.
And I've applied that here now.
So that the services run smooth-less, then you can serve the food that I want to serve
here.
So in terms of that food, what would you like to be known for?
What kind of your, what you strive for in that kind of creativity?
Well, you know, I'm pushing for accolades here.
We're currently in the Michelin guide recommended by them as we have been for 27 years.
We I'm hoping, well, I'm pushing towards two rosettes, if not a third one in the next
couple of years.
And I'd really like to get a Bibb Gaum on here.
Yeah, or you should, yeah.
Yeah, I'd really like to get one of them.
Your food's phenomenal.
Yeah.
I mean, the fact that you haven't got that really, it's surprising.
Like, it is, it's some of the best food I've ever read.
Yeah.
Like, we need some cool places as well.
But like, you know, I think that, I think managing that standard and just you as a person,
I think, like, you know, I love it a bit.
It's like, you just, you just sort of calm all the way through.
Yeah.
Whereas I get stressed as fuck with a lot of random stuff.
So I'm like, what would they do?
It'd be a bit much help.
Happy days.
But, you know, I think that's, that's a real testament to you.
And I sort of wonder if that's down in your experience in Michelin.
I think it is.
Because I've worked in kitchens, you know, where it's very, very intense.
Yeah.
And, you know, there is, there is a little bit of shouting, aggressiveness in the services.
And that environment, it helped, you know, it's molded me into the person I am today.
But I don't believe in, you know, you don't need to shout at your staff anymore.
It's just part of them.
If they make a mistake, show them again how to do things.
That also helps them progressing their career.
And also you get a lot more respect from your employees.
Absolutely.
And I think, again, looking at your team is quite a rage range.
I was just chatting before we started, like you've got a lady coming from college and
then you've got an apprentice dude and you've got some older guys in there and girls.
And again, it's managing that age range and wealth of experience.
Yeah, of course it is.
Yeah.
So do you allow them to kind of come up with their own ideas in terms of creativity or
are you very much like, this is the plan guys, if you've got ideas that fit within that,
great or?
So I like, I do like to give my staff a little bit of flexibility with the menu.
So I'll use my pastry team, for example.
I'll say to them, you know, I want a dessert with banana and passion fruit, for example.
That's the key ingredients I want them to use for the dessert.
And then they will then go away and develop a dish based on their ingredients.
And then they'll do a plate up of it and then we'll taste it together and say, you know,
that needs a little tweak or no, that's beautiful.
Let's add a little bit of coconut to that to make it a little bit more exotic.
And, you know, that's that's that's how I do the kitchen.
Yeah.
So you're giving them quite a good base for them to think, I suppose, go off and follow
the simple journey yourself.
Yeah.
You know, just really inspiring to be fair.
It's important for the team to think as well, because if, you know, if I just say, right,
this is the menu, this is what you're going to follow, this is what you're going to do,
you breed robots.
Yeah.
Whereas they don't think for themselves.
Yeah.
And, you know, especially the younger generation now, you need them to think for themselves.
Yeah.
It's important for their career development.
Or I think learning to cut any teeth here with the scope of what you do, you know, from
that fine dining element all the way through to bar mitzvahs, I imagine, you know, in this
video, everything.
Yeah.
And that's such a wealth of techniques, you know, and then equally you've got, I imagine
you have a lot of locals from the village who come here and want the standard Sunday lunch
and you know, like chips, you know, sausage and mash.
Yeah.
And that pays your bills at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Of course it does.
With a lot of stuff.
And it's, I find it really interesting at the moment, like yourself, Will at Shibton
Millen, we'd sat down with you the week, like, how you've broach in this gap of, you know,
fine dining, if you want to come away and have something or inspiring that you're going
to remember also to somebody bringing in for a Sunday lunch, you know.
So I think that that must be quite a test in the kitchen to keep jumping back and forth
across all these genres.
It is.
Yeah, you know, like, say like, Table Two when I sat the night, man and a woman that come
out for a date, they want a really nice fine dining, you know, a piece of halibut, a piece
of duck breast and then Table Three next to them is Mum and Dad and Grandma.
Yeah.
And they're all having three fish and chips.
Yeah.
So, you know, it's like.
You're a talent, Rob.
You know, we see the mixture, but at the end of the day, it's like you said in the introduction,
we are a country in pub as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you know, it's important for us to have them stapled on.
Yeah.
And I think this part of the country specifically as well, like, that's what people want, don't
they want the Yorkshire Lancashire country in type thing.
Yeah, of course they do.
They love it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what thrives out here.
You know, I think, again, looking at, you know, these sort of strange financial times,
our customers who sit within that realm, like seem to do pretty well.
It's a guys on the fringes almost that are in the city centres that it's a bit more of
a struggle, you know, bottomless brunch type of thing.
Yeah.
You know, trying to make things work.
And it's definitely a place for everyone.
But, you know, I think what's really interesting the moment and we're seeing more interest
in terms of cuisine coming out of is that sort of country dining type of fair where people
are traveling.
They want the surroundings.
They want the sort of fireplace.
And they want to eat some killer food.
Yeah, no, it's important.
Yeah.
And sort of influence wise, what would you say influences how you take those menus forward?
You know, is it local stuff?
Is it?
Well, over the past 12 months I've started to use as local as possible.
So where the white arts based in Lidgate, the dairy farm is two minutes away.
Awesome.
So, you know, if we wanted to go and spend an afternoon milking the cows, we can do.
Yeah, yeah.
So, we've got milk and cream from.
There's a local butchers, a seven minute drive away from here.
They're either on cows, they're either on sheep.
So you know, the beef, for my steaks, my Sunday lunch, it's all grass fed.
Lovely.
Or organic.
Yeah.
Just down the road.
Yeah.
So, locality is very important for me.
Yeah.
And again, you see certain themes through these sort of talks like people are we rate
like yourself, Josh and Will and things like where they're, everyone's doing the same,
they're taking the same things that locality is really becoming really, really important.
And again, going back to, you know, the breadth of customers we have dealt with and deal with,
you know, again, I think customers that go to price all the time, especially on things
like meat versus sticking at the roots of local.
These are differences in terms of who survives that.
Oh, of course.
You know, it's not always prices.
And the origin, I think again, that menu for the customer, the story for the customer
is important with that.
And I like as well how you've got an interest in a lot of our Japanese products.
Yes, I have.
And how you mix that locality with, that it works really well.
Yeah.
It is smart.
I'm really interested in all these Japanese products now.
Yeah.
It's, yeah, it's quite...
It's simple flavors I find with that.
Because again, when we first sat down back in the last year for you to try some stuff
and I was going to be like, you were quite honest with that, I don't know what the fuck
happened.
Yeah.
So, you know, but I love that because, but then the flavors kind of speak for themselves
and look, man, I'm thick as fuck.
So you know, a lot of it I've had to learn, but the way drawn by the flavors and then
what other people recommend and then we try and find the best of what we think within
that.
And then as I've said before with previous chefs, you know, I try and think when we're
trying stuff, wouldn't Nathan like this?
Yes or no?
And then, you know, trying, I have a view of your menu and what you're doing and where
that will fit in for you.
But I think that the journey you're taking with the Japanese products that I see you're
trying, you know, you're pushing the boundaries, you're doing some unusual stuff.
Which is really interesting to say you're eight months into that journey with that was
like your aim testament to how you treat your menu.
So like one of the most interesting products I think I've had from you was that, well,
too, that shiitake, sorry, sorry.
I absolutely love that.
So that on me, chicken tortellini dish at the moment, we make a duck salad and mushroom
ketchup and I've finished both of them with the shiitake soy sauce.
And another product I'm getting you from at the moment is that Yuzu Miso.
That is that sensational.
So that's someone on the desserts at the moment.
I make a nice light chocolate mousse and then finish it with this Yuzu Miso.
It just gives it another level, another level of flavor.
I like as well how you're taking those interesting ideas and doing twists on the pizzas and doing
different takes on, which again for me is interesting when you look at your core customer
base and again, guys from the village, etc.
I imagine they'll try more things because they've got faith in you, faith in this place.
And then yeah, I like how you're able to play with that and not just keep it bog standards.
It's all about educating your customers as well because you know, food evolves all the
time and if you just stick with one thing and that's what I'm doing, you know, you go
into buoy your customers at the end of the day.
So it is important to keep on changing, keep evolving because that keeps the customers
more interested in the business and like, you know, they'll come one time and they'll
have this chocolate and Yuzu dessert for example and then they'll come again and there might
be a different Yuzu dessert and so they'll be like, oh, wow, they can do all these things
with that one product.
So yeah, educating your customers I think is important.
Yeah.
Oh no, it's interesting how you're able to do that but again, you know, that comes out
through quality and rapport and I imagine you have a lot of returning business here.
Yes, we do.
You know, and then equally people who use different sides of the business I suppose as
well, you know, they'll be using the function rooms for the daughter's wedding or whatever
and all that sort of stuff.
So again, it's, you know, testament to you and the guys who own this place is to what
you've built here.
And then in terms of influences outside of just things locally, who do you look to?
Do you go out and eat and get ideas or I'm always interested in this like, is it when
you go and hold it with the Mrs. and the little one or is it, you know, what's the...
So I definitely like to eat out a lot.
So I went to the last restaurant I went was Shibdon, Millen.
I went there last Monday, me, some pals and me girlfriend, Josie and maybe Noah.
No, I loved it.
Happy days.
But no, like eating out and reading cookbooks as well.
Right, okay.
I think that's quite important.
And do you go for obscure chef guys in the cookbooks or are you going to like mainstream
and sort of go off on tangents or?
I mean, I'll read anything.
You know, Flavipasaurus, Marco Pierre White, white, white heat.
That's a legendary book.
You know, I've had that since I was probably 16.
Yeah.
You know, Gordon Ramsay, Le Mans Wires book, Thomas Keller's over in America, you know,
there's all sorts of book.
I've got a repertoire at home.
And what got you?
Was it your mum got you into cooking or?
No, so I've got a family in the industry down in Bristol.
Right.
And I'll never forget, we went down one Easter holiday and we was making a chocolate cake
for my aunt's birthday.
And the first time we ever made a chocolate gatto and I could see the love in me uncle's
face and I just thought, you know what, that's what I want to do because I saw the passion.
Nice.
And ever since then, I've never looked back.
That's brilliant.
Ever.
That is brilliant.
And do you find what I found interesting?
We spoke to Shane at Woodall Spa a couple months ago now and she's from China.
And I think it's really interesting looking at someone from a completely foreign culture
to, you know, I'm sort of Yorkshire, from where we're from and coming over here, all the language
barriers and then her food's phenomenal but it's twists on different things which I'd
never come and play to do.
But when you speak to her, a lot of it goes back to her childhood cooking with her mum
and then she's just taking her experience and knowledge and like expertise levels like
yourself and then taking these old dishes and then done her view on it.
With revamping them.
Yeah.
And I kind of wonder if people like yourself and stuff, do you go back to your roots of
what your grandnephew used to make here, what you used to do with your mum or your aunt
or whatever?
Well, when we were younger we used to do a lot of baking with grandma, baking fairy
cakes and my great-grandma Rin Bristol, she had in her garden, she had pear trees, big
trees, strawberries, loads of herbs and I remember we just used to go picking them and
then say like we picked pears for example, we'd peel them and make a crumble.
So I mean, the roots have definitely got me to where I am today because that's where
I found the passion for cooking.
Yeah.
100%.
Yeah.
And will you revisit those roots as you continue on your dishes?
Do you go back to like a pear crumble and go, do you know what, that'll go awesome with
this miso or I could upskill it with this, you know?
No.
Do you find that comfort in those old school recipes and?
No.
No, I can't.
I can't.
You know?
No, it's funny, I go back to, I mean, I'll talk about all this here but I go back
to some of the stuff I used to do with my mum when I was growing up and I like to have
a go on rubbish but yeah, then I've thought, oh, I tried this tomato ponzo but that go
really well in my mum's ex, you know?
Yeah.
And then I have a go with it and so sometimes it's an absolute disaster.
Sometimes it's sort of okay.
But do you think with Noah, do you think you'll try and push the passion of food on or?
100%.
Yes, brother.
Yeah, he's Daddy's little sous chef.
Awesome.
100%.
I'm hoping, you know, I can get him into it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'd really like that.
No, it's a Ruby, my little girl's seven so obviously with this job I take her all over
and I really like she's got to go into some cool kitchen, she's got a North Coast kitchen
and so I know my, that's a cool experience, a lot of kids get there.
You know, like Noah growing up with you in like such a great kitchen here as well, like
that'll be, you know, that's memories for the years.
Oh yeah, 100%.
Yeah, she's awesome.
Oh, for their capacity.
And what do you see as a sort of immediate future for you then in terms of, what's there,
see we've talked around getting you into different guys and done that second, third
rosette.
You know, what are you striving for in terms of, have you got anything you're working on
that year?
Do you really want to?
Well, at the moment, obviously, as we've discussed, we're pushing for all the accolades at the
moment.
We were, I'm in conversation with one chef at the moment.
We're going to be doing some guest chef nights here at the White Heart.
Because obviously, we can showcase a little bit more of our food and also we can bring
all the chefs in, which are obviously talented as well.
With the menus, you know, this year, we're starting to build our own gardens outside.
Lovely.
So we've just started planting some herbs out there already.
I think that's really interesting to speak with Josh at Goldsborough.
Like, just, it really opened my eyes to the skill sets you guys will have to learn.
Which is yet another string.
You've got all this management, all the other faculties of this business.
Then on top of that, I mean, that's so diverse.
It's a real testament.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, currently right now, do I know anything about gardening or looking after plants and
roots?
No is the answer.
But as I've said already, I love a challenge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, you know, I feel like it would be good if we start going our own veg, our own herbs
here.
It'd be a little bit of theatre for the customers.
So they can see the chefs walking in with some fresh-picked pineberries or some strawberries
or some gooseberries coming in with trays of some nice picked thyme, some rosemary.
And then that's what we're using at the night time.
So yeah, that's what we're working towards.
I realise, so Jennifer, my business partner, her husband, Ollie, they own a farm.
He's a campsite and he's a cattle farmer by heritage and trade, but I like how they've
evolved their business.
So they've got campsite now and they do lots of different events, but then they've started
well, they've found a lot of wild garlic growing, so we're going to do some like, origin
types of people, themselves and will and stuff.
But I like how their business evolves and then equally-torn the people by itself.
I like how your business evolves as well.
And it's just that new things, bit scary at first, but you figure it out and see where
you go, man.
But then again, coming back to the apprentices and stuff, that experience and learning they're
going to get from managing a garden to doing fine dining to running the menu for a wedding.
It's phenomenal.
Yeah, with the apprentices, they get to see the whole side of this business.
So they might do a little bit of time in the function kitchen here at the White Art and
then they go into it and then they work in the front kitchen for me.
So they see an Alakart service, they see a Tabla Dought service, I'm doing private dining
upstairs.
They see the functions for 180 people, you see how you get them to operate, foraging
at the back of the White Art.
We've got wild garlic, we've got brambles, there's all little sorts of herbs that we can find.
So they get to, because even just going walking down the alley and doing a bit of foraging,
that's exciting for them as it is for any chef.
And then also, we've got dinnestones, which is our other site, they might go and spend
a couple of months down there and learn a completely different kitchen so then they
become a little bit more adaptable.
Yeah, and then again, like you say there, crossing those boundaries with dinnestones,
the Italian, it's funny because we went so hard on the Japanese specialist, this last
six months we've still pushed on that obviously, but Italian is really growing for us.
And yeah, the quality of pizzas now I think.
It's phenomenal, it's such a basic thing.
It's a bit of dough and a bit of cheese and a bit of tomato sauce.
Exactly, you can make your pizza.
It tastes lovely.
Absolutely.
And again, then learning that Italian way to cook if you want.
That breadth that you guys can offer is a village pub in effect, and it's a lot larger
than that now, but yeah, it's mind blowing.
It's phenomenal.
Yeah, it's great.
And again, testament to you brother with what you've done and we really, they're excited
working with you and all this stuff and we talk quite often like what we can do together
I think it's great.
Yeah.
Any else you'd want to listen to now at all or anything else you'd like to share?
I don't think I've got anything else to share really.
I'll be very good with it.
Just come to the White Art and taste my food.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, it'll be exciting.
Some of the best food I've ever tried.
Thank you brother.
Listen man, love working with you, love seeing what you're doing.
Do people get you on Instagram?
Yes, yes.
You're on Facebook, Twitter or anything like that?
Yeah, Facebook, Nerf and Sidebot, and Instagram is just bear with Nerf and Sidebot.
Awesome brother.
Awesome.
Well listen, you've got some great filming to do with Rianne today, Ergon and Cicci in
action and yeah, really appreciate your time brother.
Love it.
Thank you so much Alistair.
Cheers man.
Thank you for joining some of the Chef Life podcast.
There have been your hopes Alistair.
If you'd like to learn more about our business, you can visit us at www.cottagefoodsltd.com.
Give us a follow and a like on Instagram and we'll see you soon.
Thanks.