‘This Dish’ is a series of short films and interview podcasts, which aims to shed a little light on the food being cooked by some of London’s top young chefs. Hopefully you think they’re worthwhile.
The best plates of food have a little story behind them: chefs are influenced by former places of work and past masters, things they’ve eaten whilst travelling and childhood memories; often they are inspired by and react to seasons and the particularly interesting ingredients that their most trusted suppliers are able to supply; maybe they’re driven by innovative techniques, flavour combinations, or by the challenge of producing things that are bloody hard to get right.
Whilst food shouldn’t be analysed too heavily or obsessively intellectualised, I think it is interesting for the diner to be privy to a few of those stories. That’s the purpose of ‘This Dish’.
It is early days, but over the next month you can look forward to films featuring Arnaud Bignon of the Greenhouse, Nicholas Balfe of Salon, Isaac Mchale of the Clove Club and James Knappet of Bubbledogs’ Kitchen Table. If you like them (and if I can get a bit of financial support), more will follow.
People like short and snappy, so the films are. If you want to hear a bit more, please listen to the Soundcloud clips for a longer edit of each interview – there are some really interesting insights that unfortunately we just couldn’t fit in to the films. I’ll try and sort them as podcasts too, so that they’re available to you during commutes and dishwashing duty.
First up is Arnaud Bignon and his intriguing dish of veal sweetbread, artichoke, parmesan and coffee. Bon Ap.
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To view the videos without clutter, visit www.thisdish.co
This Dish was devised by Ed Hancox and me, Edward Smith. The first four films were co-directed and produced by both Eds, with camera, sound and post production by Ed Hancox. The podcasts were edited by Edward Smith.
If you own or work for a company with a generous marketing budget and fancy partnering up, please email editor@rocketandsquash.com.
I ate this dish at the Greenhouse recently and really loved it – the caperberries added a real tanginess which was a great touch. An unusual blend of flavours which I’ve not seen done before but they seemed expertly matched!