How long have you been cooking?

I built my first smoker at my grandfather’s when I was seven and smoked half a pig on it. I was bored, I had nothing to do there so I got some clay and built a smoker! I was always foraging or preserving, so it was pretty clear I was going to work in food.

What is your career highlight?  

Setting up the kitchen at the first THE PIG in the New Forest. I followed our Chef Director James Golding from our work together at Harbour Heights in Sandbanks to open it – we’ve been working together now for 13 years, and at THE PIG for 11 and a half.

Sum up your food philosophy?  

The 25-mile menu at THE PIG is really important to me. We grow as much food as we can in the gardens and then preserve our produce for use in the winter, so we’re always making syrups, jams, marmalades, piccalilli, that kind of thing.

Ever cooked for anyone famous?  

Quite a few chefs! I cooked for Heston Blumenthal – it was his friend’s 40th birthday and James put together a nice classic menu for it, nothing crazy experimental. Afterwards Heston came into the kitchen to shake our hands and say hello to everyone. I’ve cooked for Marco Pierre White and Raymond Blanc too. To be honest, I like to treat everyone as a VIP because you’ll never know who you could be serving that day.

Your biggest mistake at work?  

At THE PIG-near Bath, we cooked two local goats that we had been raising for ages. They were put in the oven to slow cook overnight, but somebody accidentally changed the temperature to 200 degrees – by the time we came back the next morning they were the size of rabbits!

You’re tired, starving and impatient: what do you have for dinner?  

Good bread rolls with salted butter, cheese and sliced tomatoes. Not exciting, but it’s stuff I always have. In the summer I might have tomato, spring onion, yoghurt and crème fraîche salad – with bread rolls, of course.

What would you cook to impress someone?

Beef wellington. Not many people make it, but lots of people love it. Plus it’s the kind of dish people have once a year, so it’s nice to cook it for people.

Favourite chef?  

 Angela Hartnett. She’s an amazing teacher, and always in the kitchen – she’s there peeling potatoes and chopping onions alongside her chefs. Her food is nice and simple, and absolutely delicious too.

Favourite cookbook?  

 I recently picked up Who Put the Beef in Wellington? by James Winter. It’s filled with fifty iconic recipes from around the world – toast melba, Caesar salad, that sort of thing – and it tells you the history of the recipe and how it’s changed over the years. It’s hard to choose a cookbook though as I have over 400, I think maybe over 450 at this point! Every time I’m off work I go to charity shops with my daughter and we look for new ones to add to the collection.

Favourite type of cuisine?  

French and English. They’re actually quite similar, as there’s a lot of influence in English cooking from the French. Sometimes it’s quite hard to make simple things taste amazing and I think the French do it well. 

Favourite kitchen gadget?  

A tomato knife. You can do loads with it as it’s sharp, small and cheap. When we opened THE PIG-in the South Downs, I bought all my chefs tomato knives – 30% of my staff had plasters by the end of the day. I know because I had to sign the accident forms!

What is your favourite local supplier?  

A Pinch of Salt Curing Company in the New Forest. They work with local butcher Alan Barrett and our director James to create cured meat recipes using our pigs.

What’s your favourite thing to eat when you’re on holiday?  

 I always go to Madeira on holiday, and I eat octopus whenever I’m there. It’s totally different to octopus in the UK – really tender and always beautifully cooked.

What’s your favourite ingredient and why?  

I’m going to sound very Polish here, but beetroot. We grow quite a few different kinds here, like candy and golden beets, and they work for everything. We use them in our Piggy Bits on our menus at THE PIG, and they go in everything from risotto and mash and gnocchi to cake and even ice cream. I love it.

Most overrated dish?

Snails! They’re chewy and you can only serve them with garlic butter. 

What are you most proud of creating at THE PIG?  

I love pickling our produce. My nickname here is Mr Pickle – I even have a chef’s jacket with ‘Mr Pickle’ on it! I have a dedicated room here with about 200 jars just pickling away, as we pickle about 50 kilos of produce a week. It’s a great way to use veg from the garden in the summer, especially the wonky ones, and they’re so versatile. We even use the pickling liquid for our cocktails at the bar.

Tell us your best ever cooking tip?  

You should get most of the flavour from your dish from the fresh ingredients, not from adding packets of spices. If you buy good, flavourful produce then you can keep it simple with salt and pepper.

Three dishes every home cook should master?  

Schnitzel, because it’s really easy to make, you can use any kind of meat – beef, pork, chicken – or oyster mushrooms if you’re vegetarian, and you’ll nearly always have bread, eggs and oil in the kitchen. Plus you can put it in a sandwich! Scrambled eggs, because they’re an amazing basic, and tomato soup just because I like it.

THE PIG, Beaulieu Road, Brockenhurst, Hampshire, SO42 7QL