Smoke & Salt - modern dining | ancient techniques | pop brixton
  • Restaurant
  • Gallery
  • What's On
  • About
  • Contact
  • Private Bookings
  • Blog
  • Shop
    • Tote Bags
    • Gift Cards

On The Love of Food

20/2/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Last week was Valentine's Day and we managed to host what we feel was a successful event (check out photos here!) and it got me thinking about cooking, eating and their relationship with love, and NO, this will not be a soppy post...
Picture a group of students growing up together and learning about life (while somehow gaining a degree at the same time)...this is how I'd best describe my life upon getting to uni and realising how many others were in a similar boat to myself. It turns out that my wife was one of that group, although I was not to know it just yet. Eventually I figured out that a life in food was for me and one of my more “redeeming skills”, apparently, was the ability to get her to love me by cooking her lamb meatballs with blue cheese & avocado (I haven't cooked them again since!).
Picture
1 of the Deuxave Kitchen Families
Fast-forward 4 years and the restaurant industry became an additional love in my life. Being a part of the team at Deauxave I really learned the meaning of what it's like to have a true “kitchen family”. The hardest thing, though, is the fact that people come and people go, sometimes leaving you wanting just a little bit more and worrying whether the new kitchen family that you are a part of is going to be as good as the previous one. This is no small matter because between 60/70/80 hour work weeks, countless post-dinner service beers, stupid arguments during a particularly stressful work week, amazing dinners at some of the most simple food-establishments out there, talking about food all day (I'm not even joking about this) and just working hard to see how much food you can prepare in a short period of time, there is a lot of deep-rooted love between you and your teams. No kitchen family is better than the other but the most important part is the dynamic and how well you communicate with each other – sound similar to some “home-discussions” you may have had?!
Working in a kitchen, you learn a lot about the people around you very quickly. From day 1 you, as a new cook, are eyed up as to how good you are or how far you'll push yourself and whether you're going to be a person who can manage their own workload without pulling you down from where you are. This is what love & food is really about- loving what you do and who you do it with. The food is merely an additional factor which brings the “kitchen family” together and gives them their raison d'être. A & I are working hard to start our own kitchen family and we're looking forward to getting the Smoke & Salt team ready and started. I'm still missing my teams back in Boston and am looking forward to a big catch up soon! R.


All these photos come from food conceived and plated by line cooks at various stages of their training. Pasta, as you can see, plays a massive role as a technique to master and a way to present some of the "lesser" ingredients. Food by:

Chris Viaud
Joe Garritty
Jon Sargent
John Piecewicz
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    RSS Feed

    Archives

    December 2018
    November 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All
    2018
    A
    Bacon
    Baking
    Beer
    Ben
    Berlin
    Books
    Boston
    Bread
    Charcuterie
    Chef
    Christmas
    Dessert
    Drinks
    Duck
    Easter
    Fish
    FOH
    Gifts
    Grub Club
    Guide
    Holiday
    Imbham Farms
    Instagram
    Iran
    #Lesswaste
    London
    Market
    Meat
    Ministry Of Crab
    New York
    Olio
    Pakistan
    Pancakes
    Pasta
    Pastry
    Pickle
    Planning
    Platform 1
    Popup
    Pork
    Pussey Liquor
    R
    Recipe
    Residency
    Restaurants
    Review
    Smoke
    Snacks
    Sourdough
    Sri Lanka
    Supper Club
    T5Insta
    Thanksgiving
    The Chapel Bar
    Tools
    Travel
    Vegetables
    Video
    Videos
    Woodford Reserve

smoke & salt logo
Location
​Smoke & Salt,
49 Brixton Station Road,
​London SW9 8PQ

​07421327556
Hours
Tuesday - Thursday 
6pm-10pm

Friday 12pm-3pm | 6pm - 10pm
Saturday 12pm-3pm | 5pm - 10pm

Sunday - Monday Closed
pop brixton logo
  • Restaurant
  • Gallery
  • What's On
  • About
  • Contact
  • Private Bookings
  • Blog
  • Shop
    • Tote Bags
    • Gift Cards