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The "U.K.'s best writer on food", Nigel Slater, talks to Restaurant Spy.

The "U.K.'s best writer on food", Nigel Slater, talks to Restaurant Spy.

Spy: Congratulations Nigel, on being voted "UK's top writer on food" by Restaurant Spy readers. How does it feel?

Nigel: I am surprised and delighted.

You have just returned to your regular column in the Observer, what can we expect to see you focus on in your first few columns?

Yes, I have had a rare couple of weeks off to finish my next television series. I rather like this calm, grey patch of the year. Over the coming weeks I shall be working on a classic fish soup using cheap, sustainable fish and there will much about how to cope with winter vegetables, and lots of vegetarian cooking. I often think the non-meat eater gets a raw deal in cookery columns.

When we started up the Restaurant Spy site in 2000, our focus was on the dining experience you had, whether in a café, a restaurant or, indeed, a greasy spoon! Can you tell us what your ideal eating out experience would be? And where?

It would definitely be here, in Britain. Our restaurants are more exciting than they have ever been. It probably sounds a very odd thing for a food writer to say but I actually prefer places where the food doesn't scream for my attention. My ideal experience is somewhere that the food is good but doesn't dominate the evening. I hate the "gastronomic temple" type of place. So, in a perfect world I like somewhere with a bit of a buzz, where I don't have to dress up if I don't want to and where the menu has lots of simple, unmucked about stuff on it. I can't think of anything I want to see more on a restaurant menu than a platter of oysters.

One of the most popular features in Spy is where contributors send in their essays about awful eating out experiences. Can you let us know if you have had any disastrous eating out experiences (no names!)?

No, no actual disasters. Maybe I have just been lucky. Only a thoroughly miserable lunch at a very well known place where the food was trying to be too important. Each plate shouted "look at me, aren't I clever"! The room looked as if it had been decorated with footballers' wives in mind. It may have had a star or two but it was a miserable, empty experience with a kitchen desperate to impress.

Your writing takes many forms ­ newspaper articles, recipe books and other books on food. What do you enjoying doing most?

I am never happier than when I am cooking at home, going backwards and forwards between kitchen and my desk. I am very lucky to be able to earn my living doing the two things I love most, cooking and writing. But I still have to do the washing up.

Are there any other writers on food you would like to recommend to Spy readers?

Do take a look at Rose Prince. She writes with a broad understanding of not just the food but of the bigger picture too. She is as good on the politics of food as she is cooking it.

Your latest book, "Eating for England" is a series of essays on the eccentricities of the British way of eating. What inspired you to write it?

I feel that there was a side of British food that no one had really written about. Much is made of our traditional food and of our wonderful restaurant cooking but I wanted to shine a light on the more eccentric aspects of our eating. The book has a nostalgic, slightly mischievous tone and I think some people were surprised that I cited things like chocolate digestives as being as much part of our culinary heritage as artisan made cheddar.

There has been quite an issue about chickens in the media recently following Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's campaigns. What do you think about this and is there any more that sites like ours can do?

Jamie and Hugh are doing a brilliant job of highlighting the darker areas of our food production. Sites likes this one can help enormously by encouraging us all to check the provenance of the food we buy, including that sold in restaurants. It is often assumed that all restaurants are very fussy where their ingredients come from, but I don't think we can take that for granted. I suspect we would be surprised how many very smart places don't even use free range eggs.

As a final question, we like to ask people what they would have as a last supper. What would yours be?

I often think about this one and I agonise between something very homely and comforting and something more exciting. Often I think it would be afternoon tea with proper home made coffee and walnut cake then at other times I want it to be sashimi or maybe a wonderful fragrant Laksa. The truth is I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm not ready to go just yet.

Thank you Nigel, and we will look forward to seeing the fourth series of "A Taste of My Life" later in the year.

Lovely to talk with you!


www.nigelslater.com
By m at 05/03/2008 - 14:40 | 559 reads