He’s big, bald and boisterous and swears the whole time, in a broad Midlands accent, with the rapid-fire delivery of a stand-up comedian. Ed Charles caught up with Sat Bains at the recent Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
Sat Bains is the hottest of the new generation of British chefs, but he’s not based in the culinary capital London, instead he resides in Robin Hood territory, the regional city of Nottingham.
Born to Sikh parents from the Punjab, he doesn’t serve curry in his one star Michelin star restaurant and hotel, Sat Bains with Rooms, but he uses his taste for spices in his interpretation of British cuisine, using mostly local ingredients.
“I think I’m the best person really to typify a British chef because Britain once nearly ruled the bloody world,” says the 38-year-old. “They imported loads of spices and techniques, flavours and people from their colonies. I’m a breed of that. I’m a first generation Sikh living in Britain. I’m a product of Britain’s success.
“I’ve always loved all that savoury aromatic side of food,” he says. “And I think we’ve bought a very unique style to the restaurant. I don’t want a generic Francophile menu you can get anywhere in the world. I want them to say: ‘Wow! I’ve tasted the regions’.”
Bains is part of a movement of young regional chefs sharing techniques and suppliers and producing a British style of food. These include Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House Cambridge, Anthony Flynn from Anthony’s in Leeds and Paul Kitching who is opening this northern spring in Edinburgh.
“It is about sharing now,” says Bains. “We want to share the same passion as the artisan suppliers. I’ve probably got 150 suppliers for the restaurant. And we are a 36-seater.” Examples coming flying at me. Lincolnshire Poacher Butter is hand-churned for the restaurant. ”It crumbles rather than slices,” explains Bains. “They still import f**king French [butter] to England, [but the French] won’t import English butter. It’s ridiculous.” He has a local Hungarian butcher who makes his own sausages and chorizo. “It’s better than any chorizo I’ve had. He’s put a British identity on his Hungarian roots [and put this into] the style of a Spanish sausage. You can’t get any more magpie cuisine than that. But that’s Britain.”
Bains, who visited Melbourne for the recent Food and Wine Festival closes his restaurant when he’s not there as the food hinges on him and his extrovert personality. He demonstrated dishes that mingled scallop, pork belly, a pear gel, candied peanuts and peanut powder. And that very British beast, the hare, served with pickled cauliflower, celeriac, braised nuts and chocolate.
He says he only got into cooking because at college he joined the only queue – other than hairdressing – that had the most girls in it. Soon he was obsessed with food, and a fan of Marco Pierre White, the first British chef to reclaim British food in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“I was blown away. Saw a crazy guy, didn’t know his name. Half French, half Italian. Didn’t know who he was. Crazy hair. Rock ‘n’ Roll lifestyle. It was like: ‘Oh shit I want to be a chef’. He put British cooking on the map.”
In 1999 he won the Roux Brothers Scholarship and in 2003 was awarded his Michelin star. For all his cockiness Bains says he just wants to cook the best he can and to aim high. He doesn’t owe money to anyone. He doesn’t have backers. It’s a family-run business. “We’ve worked incredibly hard,” he says.