Ep 57: Simon Rogan

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

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It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

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Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

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And if you uh if you just sniff the podcast, you can really tell how much love's gone into it.

Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast with me, Ed Gamble.

Oh my mama.

And Lady Gaga over there, apparently.

James Acaster.

James Acaster, yes.

This is one of the famous James Acaster hangover episodes where we recorded three in a day where James has a hangover.

So if you've fact fans looking out for that to happen, this is one of those episodes.

Also, like by now, I mean, you know, if this is the third one that comes out, but you know, obviously listeners will be able to figure out which one's going to be a hangover episode before they even listen because of the photo.

They'll be like, he's wearing that t-shirt.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the same shirt.

Well, he's not wearing that t-shirt.

He's wearing that face.

He's wearing that goddamn face.

The hangover face.

Looks like a sack of shit.

Anyway, welcome to the off-menu podcast, where we ask a special guest in our dream restaurant their favorite ever starter main course dessert side dish and drink, please.

Yes, and this week, we are very excited to have another chef guest in the dream restaurant.

Yeah, cooking it up.

The chef guest this week is Simon Rogan.

Simon Rogan.

Very excited.

I am a fan of Simon's work.

I've been to his restaurant, Long Clume, in Cartmel, in the Lake District,

which comedy fans as well.

I know we've got a lot of comedy fans, we've got food fans.

Comedy fans may recognise it from the first episode, I believe, of the trip.

The first ever episode of the trip.

Was in Long Clum, and it's fantastic.

I went for lunch there before a gig in the Lake District once.

I had lunch there with Phil Wang and Steve Hall.

what a pair what a pair and what a trare we were phil sent the wine back uh phil did not phil did not send the wine back it was it was many years ago before he grew a pair oh yeah yeah fair enough yeah uh simon has also got uh so he's got two in cart mill now he's got uh he's got a restaurant in london called roganic he's just opened two restaurants in hong kong which is pretty cool uh so he's got lots going on and we're very excited to find out what his dream meal is.

As much as I respect the man and enjoy his food, if he says the secret ingredient, which we will announce now, then he will be kicked out of the restaurant.

And this week, the secret ingredient, James, is...

Corgetti.

Corgetti.

James hates courgetti, spiralized courgette.

Don't remind me of something that's better than what you are.

I kind of agree.

Just makes me think of spaghetti and how much I like spaghetti or just courgette on its own.

I prefer to courgetti.

The actual...

It does nothing for the courgette to make it all spiralised and put it like that.

It takes away all the flavour, I think.

I think, I don't like the texture of it when it's like that.

It's the worst way to have courgettes and the worst way to have spaghetti all in one.

Yeah, I think you're probably correct.

I went through a phase of, I bought a spiralizer.

I used to eat quite a lot of courgetti when I was going through an ultra-low carb phase.

But now you can buy these noodles which are made from a

specific thing,

zero carb and taste a little bit more like noodles.

Okay.

So I'm on those now.

Are you?

Yeah, but the courgetti, absolutely not.

No.

The courgette's a wonderful thing.

So I doubt that the Michelin star chef Simon Rogan will be mentioning Corgetti, but if he does, it will be a good bye-bye from us.

Yeah, it will be a good bye-bye.

But let's see what he says.

So for now,

this is the off-menu menu of Simon Rogan.

Simon Rogan!

Welcome to the Dream Restaurant, Simon Rogan.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Glad to be here.

Welcome, Simon Rogan, to the Dream Restaurant.

Now,

it's very Swish, I must say.

Pretty Swish, right?

It is.

I mean, I would love a restaurant like this.

Super Swish.

We're recording this in the top room of the Bill Murray, which doesn't feel like a Swiss restaurant, but the beauty of the Dream Restaurant, Simon, is you can imagine whatever you like in here.

Exactly.

And yeah, I think we're going to come up with a few good things.

Yeah, why not?

I reckon so.

I'm inspired.

When you walk into a space for the first time that you're thinking about opening a restaurant in, do you stand there and just try and visualise where everything's going to go, what it's going to look like?

Yeah, well pretty much

we normally take on restaurants that are already there.

Whatever.

So

yeah, so it doesn't need too much imagination.

So it's a case of what we want to strip out or not.

I've never really gone for the sort of empty space, new build sort of thing.

So

I haven't got the imagination for that, I don't think.

I'm very similar.

I've been looking around houses at the moment, looking where to move to.

And my girlfriend's amazing at going, and we can put this here, this here, and this here.

It's like, no, we need to go to the houses that are already finished.

It's always easier copying other people's tastes, I think.

You know, and some of it is a bit naff, but more often than not, it's good enough for me.

Yeah.

Well, James exploded in there because he is playing the waiter in this.

He's a genie as well, which means he can magic you anything that you want for your meal from wherever around the world, from whatever time in your life.

Right, okay.

I'll tell you what, it's my pleasure.

He's a very polite genie waiter as well.

yeah yeah it was always handy to have a genie waiter yeah have you had uh any particular any particular like amazing waiters who work at your restaurants that stick in your mind as being the best and do you have someone who sticks it in your mind as being the worst um both really yeah if i tell them i want to pay rise or they come around to kill me right one or the other so i sort of keep that under my chest really what's the top what's the top quality you look for if you're hiring a waiter someone that's really enthusiastic you know got got an eye for detail

For UK staff, it's a fairly dying breed.

I mean, we don't see it

as a trade over here like they do in France, where it's an art form.

It's seen as a bit of a sort of a negative sort of position.

Like a stopgap sort of thing.

Exactly, yeah.

So why should I wait on this guy?

Because he's got some money, you know.

But how about let's wait on this guy and make some money?

That's the more the attitude I see.

So it's an art form in France, is it?

I think they look at it as an art form, yeah.

Anything

in the food field, they look at as being sort of right at the top of the tree, really.

It's all part of the experience.

They've got the history, haven't they?

Let's face it, quite envious.

And, you know, sometimes I think I was born French, really, but I come out English, unfortunately.

But yeah, I love France and the whole lifestyle.

It's something that really appeals to me.

Is there a meal you've had in France where you remember particularly like that the service was impeccable?

Well, yeah, I mean, the best meal of my life was a restaurant called La Ferme de Montpère.

It was a guy called Marc Verat, so he's in the in the sort of hills of Mont Blanc in the Alps.

So we left Cumbria to go down to Manchester after service and the restaurant that night

flew very, very early, like five o'clock in the morning to Geneva, back into France, arrived in Megev, where the restaurant was.

And then, you know, it started snowing in April, which was pretty magical.

And then we went to the the restaurant, it was basically a recreation of his father's farm.

So it was just like a film set.

So you look through the, there's a glass square in the floor, and you see some live pigs, and you look over in the corner, and there's a cow looking at you through the wall.

And it was just an absolutely massive.

All specifically to recreate his farm.

Absolutely.

There was hay bells here.

And you know,

it was just like being on a film set.

That's amazing.

And the meal was incredible.

And, you know, I took great inspiration from that because it was basically based on alpine herbs, wild herbs, flowers, and sort of flora, which I'm very passionate about myself.

See, Lake District's not the Alps, obviously, but it's the nearest

as nearest we got to it.

So, he was a big inspiration for me.

So, that was the most memorable meal in France that I can remember.

Do you get up early in the morning, go out and find something in the lake district to use?

I used to.

Not so much anymore.

You got other people to do that.

Yeah, we got other people to do that.

I mean, to be quite honest,

we sort of took a step back on the foraging side because, you know, sort of you grow up and sort of look at things and what you're doing, and then you realise a lot of it is a load of shit.

We always start the meal with the choice of still or sparkling water.

What would you prefer?

Well, I, you know, much to my exec chef's disgust, because he's a real still man and he's he thinks that's a man's, a man's water, if you like.

I go for sparkling myself

as much as possible at the moment because I'm trying to use a little bit of weight.

And I've told if the more you drink, the more you feel filled up because of the bubbles in it.

So it's sort of got a bit of a double whammy for me at the moment.

So sparkling water, definitely like a bit of fizz in my life.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I definitely need to lose a bit of food.

I've been eating like an absolute Trojan recently.

So that's surely allowed as a chef.

Yeah, a little taste, maybe, but you know, I've been absolutely caning it recently because we've just opened a couple of restaurants in in Hong Kong amazing so I've been out there quite a lot and obviously there's nothing low calorie about Chinese food

so it's it's been quite tough on the old physique so trying to lose a bit of weight recently

off the leash over there yeah definitely it's sort of morning lunch afternoon dinner right the way throughout the night i mean we think we've got a lot of restaurants in london you want to go to hong kong it's just absolutely incredible and it never stops oh man so uh yeah definitely sparkling water to fill yourself up a little bit definitely that's quite clever pop lobs or bread pop lobs or bread pop a dumbs or bread right well so I eat load I eat an absolute shedload of bread day in day out I don't know how many do you have a shed full of bread on the farm not shed full of bread we have a shed full of bread at the restaurant we have our own bakery which is which is great

but yeah I eat I eat bread day in day out so if I'm out I'll go pop a dom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm probably the only person I know that likes lime pickle, to be fair.

I love it.

Great, though.

We've chatted a little bit about lime pickle in the past, and it's just, I like, for me, it's just quite a confusing flavour.

Yeah, I'm like, I don't really know what's going on here, but I guess for you, as a chef, you know exactly why it tastes the way it does and what's going on there.

Yeah, mainly due to the kingfisher you're drinking with it, I think.

It's a big, big help to actually getting through it.

But yeah, I like dips, you know, I like the actual sort of mixing those dips, the yogurt and the lime pickle and whatever's on offer and you know, with the little vegetables as well.

It was a great way to start.

I mean,

when I was on Great Rich Menu, I think

I did so well because I was actually living in Marleybone at the time, and I had an Indian every night and a pint of Kingfish, and that took me away from the filming and just sort of really relaxed me.

So, I'm a real lover of

a ruby and

Indian food.

Every night you could eat a curry every night.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

It helped, it was literally 20 yards across the road, so

I didn't have to go anywhere for a while.

Did you eat the same curry every day?

No, I did also.

No,

I was being really sort of quite imaginative with my choices.

So I wasn't, you know, I wasn't sort of saying, like, oh, I'm just going to wear the same tie for luck.

Yeah, yeah.

I wasn't going to have the same curry for luck because I did all right that day.

I had a different curry, so you know, it worked out okay.

But yeah, good, a big lover of

Indian food.

The beers that you get in like Indian restaurants, Chinese restaurants are, I think, are actually my some of my favourite beers.

So like a kingfisher or like a tiger, a cobra.

Yeah, yeah.

I love them.

I love them so much.

I've started

when I started noticing that you can't actually just buy them in the supermarket.

I felt so weird the first time I had a cobra and I wasn't in an Indian restaurant.

Would you have it without Indian food?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would, yeah.

I mean, I'd never do that.

It feels so weird, Ed.

I love doing it, but it feels so strange to be sitting there in your living room just having a cobra.

It's very strange.

I think they're very refreshing, the beers.

So I think you can

trickle

Is a cobra less fizzy?

Is that right?

I'm more of a kingfisher man myself.

Don't really drink that much cobra.

I thought like a cobra is sold on the basis of it being less fizzy, so it's almost like the opposite of what you're using sparkling water for.

So you're less full up.

Oh, I don't want to drink that one.

Don't touch it.

I don't want to touch that one.

You are.

You're double fizz.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So, we come to your starter, so the the big leagues now.

Yeah.

The big boys.

The showstoppers.

Well, um, it probably have to be a Som Tom papaya salad because I absolutely love Thai food as well.

And here we go again.

It's great with a singer beer.

There is nothing.

It's a matchmake in heaven as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah.

Papaya, really gorgeous papaya, fragrant, fresh, crispy papaya salad with a singer beer.

And I could eat it

all day, every day for the rest of my life.

It's it's a des uh desert island

food without a shadow of a doubt.

And it's so healthy for you.

You don't need to drink so much fizzy water.

So, what else is in the salad then?

What ingredients have we got?

Oh, you've got papaya, obviously, green papaya in it.

You know, you've got some fish sauce, you've got peanuts, you've got tamarind juice, you've got coriander, tomatoes.

So, you know, all those really fragrant, lovely palm sugar as well, a little bit of sweetness.

So, you've got all those lovely, lovely flavours, and it's just

so nice.

And, like I say, with a single beer

in the other.

You've been very clear about that.

It's not down the skin bit, but I actually put piety, so I didn't know out the window.

You know, it's got to be that combination.

This is quite, so we've had, so I think you're the third chef we've interviewed, and chefs tend to, we found that chefs do tend to pair each course with

a certain drink as well.

Like, other guess we've had a like, it'll just be that starter.

Yeah, but I guess you're just used to thinking about what's it going to go.

Yeah, the whole experience.

Yeah, well, I think that's because chefs drink a lot.

But that is very much what we're understanding over the course of doing this podcast is that

chefs drink a lot.

Although, we had Tom Kerridge on the podcast.

Oh, God.

The king of drinkers was the king of drinkers.

Exactly, but he said, as it's a dream restaurant, his drink was 24 cans of Stella.

I've actually left Tom a few nights after 24 cans of Stella.

I'm telling you, I mean, he's as fresh as a daisy, and I'm absolutely dying on

all fours sort of thing.

So, yeah, I've had a few sessions with him, and yeah, it's not pleasant, I'm telling you especially the next morning yeah

that that's when we got the inkling that the chefs might drink uh more than non-chefs yeah well we had a pub in cartmell for a time not for long obviously we weren't very good at because we drunk all the profits so um but no it's uh it's uh it's probably part part of the job really is it is it part of the job i guess because you're just finishing so late Pretty much, yeah, it's a release.

Obviously, we're going to talk about my favourite drink in a minute.

And

obviously, there's no,

you don't have to guess what it's going to be.

I mean, it's very

alcohol,

but um, you know, it's something just a little bit of release after work, you know, and just

I haven't thought about this a lot.

So, if chefs, you're not going out for like a massive night after service, are you, or is it just a few drinks?

Well, I'm a little bit older these days, so going out and getting tanked, like probably a lot of the younger guys do.

I mean, that's sort of a bit away from me now.

I don't, I don't go to service.

So, what time are you up for service?

Or for not for service for

I'm up early.

I mean, I'm up early, so I'm up as early as possible.

So, I was up at six o'clock this morning.

I bonded it around the farm to have a look at a few things before I jumped on the train down to London.

So

early starts.

Yeah, just the idea of going out

after work and getting hammered and then having to get up at that time of the morning.

We haven't got the pub anymore, so I didn't normally go home.

Yeah.

So I just stroll into bed.

There's no going out and getting hammered anymore.

It's

a cartmell doesn't get lairy after.

Well, it's got a decent

pub call, actually.

There's six

for a village the size of it, there's six drinking holes now.

So

it's such a picturesque town, though.

You don't imagine it kicking off.

And I've been to Cartmell.

I've been to Long Clume.

I came to Long Clum for an absolutely amazing meal.

But I couldn't imagine it being a Lairy night out.

We'll be in Lairy this weekend.

It's Cartmel Races.

Okay.

So

it's got the smallest horse racing track in the UK.

So it's race weekend this weekend.

It's not Ascot, obviously.

But we like, we have a...

How small are we talking, Simon?

Because I'm imagining just the size of this table.

Yeah, it's a lot more.

I don't know how many miles it is, actually.

It's like a dog chasing its tail.

Yeah, it probably takes

one horse.

Yeah, it's probably about, I don't know, about a mile long, I would say.

It's just sort of goes round and round, and it's a tiny, dinky little thing.

It's quite funny.

It's right in the village.

Yeah.

Can't remember you didn't see it.

It's so small, you didn't see it.

But yeah, it's

a

pretty wild time

when the races are on and uh you you know how big the the village is.

We'll probably have if sun shines there's anything between twenty and thirty thousand people.

Oh, amazing.

Yeah, so it's uh you know

you do special dishes for that time.

No, to be quite honest, our customers hate it.

Right.

Yeah,'cause uh they're normally on a a busy weekend or a bank holiday anyway when we're full.

Yeah.

So all our customers are a little bit more well-to-do and they're not coming for the races so they uh they actually hate it because they can't actually get into the village for one thing and it's just too packed.

so it's actually not not great for us if you like so we've actually resorted now to having a restaurant on the races so we take the other restaurant Rogan and Company and we've got a tent on on on the race course and and we feed people there now so it's uh it's good it's good fun good fun great so you feel like you've so how many how many you've got is it two restaurants in Cartmel now well we've got two we've got two restaurants in Cartmel

and then we've got two in London yeah two in Hong Kong and then we're opening another one in the lakes up near Boness.

Oh, amazing within a hotel in Point Health up there, so uh very, very uh exciting about that because it's a break from the norm of my normal style of food.

So, we were normally rooted in British ingredients and uh not not sort of careering off too much uh from there.

But this is about uh my travels from around the world.

Oh, great, and I bought in a chef from over from the US and you know, he's got a great knowledge of uh world foods as well, so it's gonna be a little bit different.

Same ethos, organic and healthy and stuff like that, but more of a world influence.

So, it's something completely different,

which yes, it should be a lot of fun, I hope.

Well, that many restaurants, because you must be like, you know,

I don't know how often you change the menus and stuff.

Are you just constantly thinking of

constantly thinking?

Constantly, constantly thinking.

Luckily, I've got amazing teams in all of those restaurants.

So, I'll walk into Roganic tonight, and I'm, you know, since last week, I've been up in cartmell, and we sort of catch up, and then boom we start talking about new dishes and changes and stuff like that so they make it easy for me if uh if if I was doing it all on my own I I wouldn't be here I'll be six foot under

I wouldn't be able to take it you know I would be completely

in a nuisance

but it's uh it's it's it's it's it's good they they they go they make things easy for me a lot and you've been in cartmell for a while now right are they yeah are the the locals are all right with it it doesn't all right yeah yeah I'm still an off-comer yeah

I've been there 19 years now

Don't know how much longer I have to be there before not being called an off-comer.

Right, okay.

But yeah, we do all right for the village.

And I mean, to be fair, there's a lot of good things to go to in Cartmell now.

I mean, there's always the sticky toffee pudding and Cartmel Priory and all these wonderful things, the races.

But now, you know, we've got some really sort of great craft breweries,

micro breweries, wine bars, say six pubs,

all sorts of different gift shops.

It's becoming quite a a nice little place.

And we've got a shop as well, sell our own merchandise.

Were they a bit funny about you when you first arrived?

Because to open then to open another restaurant as well.

Yeah, I mean.

I would have thought you were trying to Rick Stein it.

Yeah, we've taken over the whole thing.

I think they thought who's this suburb coming up and taking a sort of like a northern guy's livelihood or something like that.

But I mean, to be fair, at the time,

Foot and Mouth had just finished when I arrived there.

Suspicious.

It was a bit, yeah.

That was the name of the restaurant before you got there.

Well, it was quite an infamous project before I got there because it had been being built for two years and it's been renovated because it's a 13th century forge.

Yeah, so all the renovations were going on before I arrived.

So it was already like, oh my god, when's this going to be finished?

Yeah.

You know, the locals were already a bit anti-the idea.

And obviously, when we bought the product in, it was even worse because it's like, what's all this Ponce of Bosch stuff?

You know, we want a tea shop, you know?

Yeah, sure.

So, um, you know, yeah, it took a while, and uh, you know, over the years, it's it's uh not been all moonlight and roses, but we're all one big happy family now.

Great, gosh, we're all team cart now, and uh, you know, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

I'm glad you said team cart melon, not team Simon.

Yeah, exactly.

We're all on team Simon now.

How spicy are we talking for the papaya salad?

Oh, pretty spicy, quite a lot of chili, innit?

Yeah, for that nice crisp thinger, you know, it's got over like a nice mango thing.

Come to your main course.

Funnily enough, the uh the main course isn't actually alcohol linked.

I never thought of that, to be quiet.

But

it takes me back to my first job when I was training.

So

I started off in a Greek restaurant in Southampton.

So I started as a 14-year-old, as a part-timer on a Friday and Saturday night.

And I remember it was back in 1980.

And I got paid £24 a week, which was an amazing amount of money for someone at school.

Yeah, that's incredible.

It was amazing, yeah.

I worked with two sort of Playboy Greek guys who were a bit, you know, they were a bit with the ladies and stuff like that.

And they took me under their wing.

You know, we used to, you know, finish the shift and go and play snooker or go to nightclubs and stuff like that.

I was a bit young, but they got me in somehow.

A little bit.

And their looks got me in, I think.

£14, £24 quid in your pocket.

Yeah,

it was

So when it came to sort of leaving school, it was like, do you know what?

Sod this

college or university, I'm going to be a chef.

I'm earning loads of money and I'm, you know, I'm with these two guys that internet.

So I took a full-time job

as soon as I left school and got paid at a great restaurant.

And all of a sudden, I was on £250 a week in those days,

which was quite a lot of money.

Having a great time, but then I went to Day Release College and realized that actually i was a load of shit compared to all the other guys that were in the class from you know really good country house hotels and and places like that so that really ignited the competitive nature of me and i want to make myself better so i moved to another hotel in the new forest um as an apprentice to a chef that had been at the savoy for 12 years so it can't get more classical than that and yeah you know for a young chef it's really important for

a massive classical grounding is absent these days which is you know another story.

So anyway, now I've gone to that job and I was getting paid no money whatsoever and

all the sort of reasons for taking a career as a chef were turned on their head.

But by then I was absolutely in love with what I was doing.

So you're making less money in the posh country house hotel than you were at the Greek restaurant.

Yeah I was, yeah.

But I wanted to make myself better.

So it didn't really matter.

Did the Greek guys still come and pick you up and take you out to the nightclub?

No they didn't.

No.

No they weren't very happy that I left.

But anyway, so my main course would be moussaka.

Right.

Because I was the king of moussaka.

Well, James, James is the mash king.

I was the mash king.

When I worked at a pub, I was known as the mash king.

So I made very good mashed potatoes.

Oh, right, okay.

So it's really nice.

I was nice to meet the moussaka king.

How did you make the mashed potatoes?

Moussaka is, of course, in the Lion King, right?

Yeah,

that's the end of the kid.

I made the mashed potatoes with

full-fat cream,

butter,

loads of salt and pepper,

and a city's pour a whole singer beer into it.

And the secret ingredient was potatoes.

I knew they were coming in as I was.

Yeah, yeah, but

I was pretty good at it.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, if you're doing that all day, every day, you normally become quite good at it, don't you?

So that's all I did.

I was Moussaka.

I did the chips as well.

Take us through it, take us through the layers, because I think there might be some world listeners who aren't versed in music.

Yeah, I mean,

we went to town

on the Venus Greek Taverna Moussaka.

It was

normally I think it's just potatoes and courgettes, obviously lamb mints and like a cheesy sauce on the top.

I mean we had potatoes, courgettes, peppers, aubergines all over.

So it was potatoes first in the dish, then some roasted courgettes.

Roasted potatoes first, roasted courgettes, then the lovely lamb mints, you know, cooked down with a bit of cinnamon, so really, really nice and fragrant and tasty.

And then laid over the top of that was roasted aubergines and roasted peppers and then obviously the cheese sauce went over the top.

And we did it in massive trays like that, let it go cold and cut out big squares of it.

And it's chucked it in the oven and all melted and it was delicious.

So I always remember that and I've loved Moussaka ever since.

You don't see it a lot.

You don't Moussaka.

It's w it's it's wait it's waiting for some sort of like hipster regeneration I think Moussaka.

Well I think with Greek food if you I don't know why but you never see amazing or quantities of amazing Greek restaurants in the UK.

And when you think about it, it's probably one of the world cuisines.

You know, look at what's on offer.

But I think Turkey have taken most of the glory for

the Greek food.

So, you know, I would put Greek food on a par with Italian or France for the history and the actual quality of what's on offer.

But you don't really see it.

So maybe that's next.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

And it's really high quality Greek.

Bring back the Venus.

Yeah,

regenerate the Venus.

I'll see if Nofi Doss and Michael are available to come and funny.

But they're probably a bit grey by now.

Yeah, they'll still be down the nightclub.

They will, yeah, yeah.

I really want that to happen now.

I really want you to open a Greek restaurant, call it the same name, and then we can say

this podcast.

Yeah, which is nice.

Pay yourself a little bit more.

Have you ever

included dishes inspired by them at that Greek restaurant?

Yeah, but you might like that.

Yeah, before when we opened L'Anclune, we were very much the style we are now.

But I did have a bit of a phase where I got a bit sidetracked and I went off around the world.

So, you know, I got inspired or sort of influenced by Spain and the Far East and stuff like that.

And there's a few dishes that crept on the menu that were from the Venus Greek Tavernus.

So I remember this meatball recipe we had

at the restaurant.

And I bought that back and we served it on a little syringe

and we made a Zatziki, but we made it and made it smooth and then charged it in a cream whipper so it was like a foam and stuff like that.

And it was actually on the menu.

Meatballs Mr.

Nick would be proud of.

So Mr.

Nick was the father of Northidios and Mike, who actually owned the restaurants.

So

little pointers from there was definitely on the menu, but obviously grew up.

quite quickly.

So we had to, or else we wouldn't be in business for very long with stuff going on like that.

So, you know,

people are not keen on a meatball on the side.

So, when you're sort of really going for avant-garde and just like crazy techniques and stuff like that, you know, it's not to everyone's taste.

So,

you know, it's

everyone likes what we do, but then you get a little percentage that don't.

And I want everyone to love what we do.

Sure, sure.

Still, I quite like to try that meatball.

Yeah, they were really good.

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So, your side dish with so we've got a big Greek main here.

Like, is the side dish?

I mean, they don't have to balance,

whatever you want.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm going to go for potatoes because they are my favourite ingredient, and it's got to be a Gratin Dauphin Noise.

Oh, gotta be.

I'm talking like,

I mean, you don't need cutlery, I just use my hands.

I've got a dish, and I'm just

handing it into my mouth, you know.

My favourite way of preparing potatoes for Dauphin Wair's.

Yeah, the vehicle for cream.

Yeah, exactly.

Cream and garlic.

Cream, garlic.

Creamy, garlicky, cheesy goodness.

Oh, so good.

And then obviously over the years, there's been so many different sort of techniques and little tricks and ways of doing it.

You boil the cream and put the potatoes in, and then just chuck it in a dish, or you layer the potatoes, and then layer in the cream and the garlic.

I'm pretty much of the layering technology

technique myself, actually because a little bit more care and you know when you cut through the dauphin roar you've got lovely neat layers and sort of that preciseness and uh when i've cooked dauphin roars in the past in like a glass in a glassing and then you can see what's going on you can watch what's going on under the surface yeah like an aquarium for potato yeah yeah

a potarium right now i'm looking at that thinking that very thought i'm thinking what i would have in my right hand which i'd be drinking at the time

i thought this was coming so busy yeah and i I didn't say anything for the La Vani, but I think you a glass of wine, wouldn't it?

Really?

That's probably the only thing I drink wine with, to be quite honest.

But yeah, Dauphin Rice would be top of the list, I think.

Something like a Greek salad.

Yeah, sure, sure.

That would go better with the moussaka, sure.

But you've got moussaka and then the dauphin roast potato, two tray things.

Two layers.

You're also thinking of service, of getting that quickly, so you can just both in the oven.

It's all in the preparation.

So the less in the serving, the more you can concentrate on

the right pairing just for drinking.

Why is potato your favourite ingredient?

I was thinking they're so versatile, so many different ways you can eat them, you know.

And we grow lots of them on the farm and it's

grow little, tiny, tiny little potatoes,

literally flake the skin off and just barely cook them.

We cook them al dente actually and they're just so, so tasty.

But

yeah, I mean, I don't know how many variations of potato dish there is in the

Lerus Gastronomique, which is the Chef's Bible, but I bet it's thousands.

So I would say potatoes are the...

I mean, the mash is pretty crazy.

If you had to rank your top five ways of doing potatoes.

Here we go.

Yeah.

How would you do it?

Well, Dophamise, definitely.

MASH would be right up there, 50-50.

50% butter, 50% potato.

Proper

coronary.

I know you're the professional Seinman, but don't come in here and try and challenge the mash guy.

Don't try and knock him off his throne.

No, I'll leave that to him.

You've already got your Moussaka realm.

Yeah, yeah.

Preside over.

Boulanger as well, I reckon.

Quite nice with the that's in the stock and the onions.

That's a really nice one.

I've told this story before, Simon.

My mum does potato, like boulangere, and then roasts the lamb on top of the potato saw the fat drips down.

Yeah, a bit like a lamb hot pot.

A bit like a lamb hot pot.

What a great Sunday that is.

Yeah, well,

like I say, just lovely, lovely little ones, just gently scraped, just loads of butter again, and a bit of mint maybe.

It's just a really nice way to eat them.

You've not even mentioned the humble chip.

Well, chips, yeah, of course.

Yeah, absolutely.

Chips.

But you're not that bothered by chips.

Not really, no.

I don't eat that.

No, I was curled up in potatoes.

You didn't say both chips.

I don't eat a lot of chips, to be quite honest, which is funny enough.

I eat most potatoes in just about every way, but I don't eat that many chips, which is quite unusual.

People will be up in arms out there listening to that.

Oh, yeah, they will.

they'll be screaming at the sky they'll be outside there with their pitchforks and their torches with chips on the end of the pitchforks yeah how many was that anyway i don't know there was a four or five i don't know i feel like you've done yeah jackets yeah jack of potatoes jack of potatoes oh come on what yeah

how did i forget that one you know what you're putting in that because i'm thinking uh well do you remember do you remember the spudgy-like chains

yeah you don't see them anymore

they're gone now yeah so i'm thinking for Hong Kong, that might be our next little venture up there, bring Spudgy-like to Hong Kong because I can just see them sat alongside all these little street food places.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A Spudgy-like chain in Hong Kong.

But it could be amazing.

And the one I always used to have would be the chicken curry one.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Loads of butter, loads of chicken curry on the top.

It was absolutely heavenly.

Yeah, I like chicken curry in a jacket potato is a very good combination.

Excellent.

I'm just straight cheese.

Just cheese.

Fill it with cheese.

Scoop out all the potato, throw that away.

Okay, you're describing loaded skins, Ed.

Oh, loaded skins.

Yes.

You're describing a jack of potato.

I love loaded skins.

I bet you do.

I would always go for loaded skins as a starter in one of those restaurants that do loaded skins.

Actually, yeah, can I change them a starter?

Look at those skins.

And I would always be disappointed when you get the loaded skins if there was too much potato left on the skin.

Yeah.

We always wanted to be like just the skin of the potato and then a tiny little layer of potato and then straight

meat and cheese and ham and stuff like that.

Yeah,

yeah,

that's a good call.

It's to make them in a pub, a different pub that I've worked in.

Whether you were the skin king,

the skin prints, yeah.

But I would, yeah, we would make those, but like, did them in the fryer, and they were always very.

I didn't think, I didn't think we did a great job, if I'm honest.

We'd deep-fry the skins first and then load them up and put it under the grill.

But it was

well,

all just shit, really.

But like, it was just still have some like grease, you know, or oil on it.

It wasn't good.

Yeah, yeah.

It wasn't good.

I've always felt a bit bad sending it because they sounded so good on the menu.

I was like,

I know we're going to do a really bad job of these.

You should never, don't send anything out you're not proud of.

That's what I've learned from things like Great British Menu and all these cooking shows.

If you're not proud of it, don't send it out.

Oh, chuck out the wall.

Chuck what normally happens.

I don't like this.

Bang.

Straight in the wall.

Straight on the wall.

If I'd done that, though, there would have been a lot.

I mean, that pub was a pretty bad pub.

So there would have been a lot of stuff on that wall.

A lot of food on the wall.

The boss would have come in anyway.

Have you ever thrown anything at the wall?

I might have in the past, yeah.

When you were like, a long, yeah, a long, long time ago.

I mean, I actually grew up as a chef through the late eighties and nineties when there was a lot of enfant terribles out there,

the Marcos and the Nicos and, you know, the Burton races and stuff like that, where it was a battle to get through the day in a kitchen.

So you saw a few sights and then when you sort of come out of that environment and you start

going alone, you sort of want to be like them and you sort of go off in the same way.

But then all of a sudden, you think, actually, you can do better and get more out of people by not being this way.

Why is that?

Because you wouldn't get away with it.

You get sued every five minutes.

So,

why was that a thing?

Why was that ever?

Is it just something to do with the environment that gets people really intense, or is it just attract sort of angry, angry people?

A bit of both, I think.

Yes, the environment, yeah, very pressurized, and and

you're seeking perfection and everything's got to be absolutely on the button.

Yeah,

things go wrong and tempers fray, shall we say.

And it's thankfully not happening these days and

rightfully so.

And

it was a crazy time, definitely.

No doubt about it.

As long as people realise they can get it because I mean the first person to have done like me just lost it.

A chef is like, oh the fuck is this?

And have a go at everyone and then realizing I got away with that.

I thought that was gonna be the end of my career.

People just took it and carried on.

I know I'm doing that every day.

Because if a real good release fell, I'm gonna keep on shouting at people.

Yeah, yeah.

But like, yeah.

Over time,

I used to have a absolutely that same place with the loaded skins.

Oh, there's a chef there.

What a bully.

Yeah.

Awful.

Was that where they used to pull your trousers down?

Well, everyone pulled each other's trousers down.

Yeah, it was one of those kitchens.

Oh, really?

So was it a proper, like, you know, wasn't it a proper?

it was like a chain kind of one of those family pubs with a soft player i don't think i've ever worked in a kitchen where they pull their trousers down yeah everyone's hope to know as someone who's been to one of your oh to pull their own trousers as well i'm glad to know that no one was pulling no trousers are most certainly up at all times good to know i want to point out that i wasn't pulling my own trousers down it was like people were detecting me i wasn't i wasn't going hey guys yeah but you do that now when you cook at home by you it's now when i cook at home it's the only way you can get

victory every time it's gone well But yeah, there's loads of old that were throwing knives at people's feet, steak knives.

They'd get the jacket potatoes and bowl them across the tabletops if they were at dick height.

So they just

get you in the nuts with those,

put Tabasco on your straw if you had a drink.

One guy used to heat up tongs on the grill and then hang them back up again and then ask someone to flip a steak for him and then they just get the tongue burn their hand.

Horrible.

Horrible place.

That was nasty.

Yeah, you said that It sounds like you worked in the worst kitchen ever.

I did not like it.

Simon said he thought it was nasty, but when you were saying all of that, he was taking notes.

Yeah, going, this is great on pranks he could do in the kitchen.

I'm on the grill.

So

your drink, we've already had a few drinks already.

This is quite exciting.

Yeah, well, I mean, I could punch it up and say something to make me really sophisticated or

clever or something like that.

But everyone that knows me would know I'm lying.

It's just basically gin and tonic.

Right.

I mean, yeah,

I'm a gin and tonic boy.

I mean, that's it.

I think it was simple.

First gin and tonic boy.

The first G and T we've had.

Yeah, I'm a gin and tonic guy.

When I go back to the pub, I actually invented a gin-based drink.

I sort of had a

little bit of a deviation away from gin and tonic.

It was called the floor clearer.

So if you picture, we're finishing the work, going after work, or if I'm off on a night, just just go and sit at the bar and it's a pint, pint glass.

Lovely.

Quadruple gin in there.

Right.

Eight ice cubes and then just fill it up with a really spicy, hot, fiery ginger beer.

Oh, yeah.

And Angostira bitters.

Yes.

So basically the effect was

as

I drank more of this drink and went on to the next one, I got louder and louder and the floor cleared.

And that was it.

We called it the floor clearer.

Quite handy at closing time, obviously, because there's no one left.

I don't have to get anyone out anymore.

But then she went back to gin.

I don't drink it as bad as what I used to.

Very sort of regulated now.

Tankaret is probably the gin of my choice.

Drink too much of it, the W goes on the front of it instead of tea.

Sure, yeah.

But yeah, that's my drink.

I think any drink that starts with it has to be in a pint glass.

Yeah, it's going to be.

Yeah.

Take a pint glass.

And I've tried taking that, you know, to to other pubs and

make it but then realize it costs 25 quid

to actually drink it and you thought God so it's costing 25 quid every time I drink one in my own pub anyway.

No wonder it was shit.

It's a huge loss every single day.

Can't figure out

I love the reason you won't get it in another pub is not is because of the price, not because you have to go get a pint glass.

Quadruple gin.

Quadruple gin.

I mean every time I did it, I did it

explain it, I did get a few raised eyebrows.

The quadruple gin was probably the first big sort of obstacle to navigate for people actually pouring you ones like, no, don't be so stupid.

Because you'd be going in there with a tray of dauphin ones.

But yeah, gin is my drink.

I've only got into gin.

and tonic recently really.

I absolutely love it.

That's a good home drink.

It is, yeah.

It is.

And it all started off with IKEA, actually, because I remember we went to IKEA in Warrington to buy some finite furniture, and we saw these lovely sort of ropey big chairs that you go and put in the garden.

And I thought, oh, they look really nice.

And they just became our gin and tonic chairs.

We just thought, what can we do with these chairs?

I know.

Let's start drinking gin and tonic.

It's actually Ikea's fault that I become a gin and tonic model.

Because they just thought people are going to sit in them.

Yeah.

But they weren't banking on a chef coming in and realising that they needed a pair sitting without them.

Yeah, yeah.

I need to use these chairs for something.

I'm probably drinking gin in pints.

Yeah.

In pine glasses.

Yeah.

I've just started drinking a crazy gin that tastes of seaweed.

Oh, really?

This from Harris gin.

It's from the Isle of Harris.

But it really tastes of seaweed.

And when I had it initially, I was like, well, I feel like I'm drowning.

But now I'm into it.

They say drowning is the most peaceful way to die.

Really good.

Beautiful Ed.

Yeah, thank you.

My old flatmates,

Joe and Kate, shout out.

Shout out out to Joe and Kate.

They went on a little gin making course and

like a gin course.

And then, oh, it was great.

Every day,

they made the best gin and tonics I've ever had.

Still the best gin and tonics I've ever.

To the point where actually I don't actually get gin and tonics now if I go out because I always know it's not as good as Joe and Kate's gin and tonics.

Like this big fishbowl glasses and

so refreshing and cool.

What's in them?

Cucumber or

I think grapefruit's really nice and they change it up actually.

They do put grapefruit it.

So I've had ones that they make with cucumber, with grapefruit, with a twist of lemon or orange.

But also they just got some really nice

botanical gins and stuff.

So they've got some really great ingredients.

I think gin and tonics are one of those drinks where like as soon as you have a better one than the ones you've had before, you can't go back.

It's really difficult to go back to just having like bog standard gin and tonic.

And then

I get an instant headache from a bad one.

I just can't hack it.

Yeah.

Well, that's you find your one, don't you?

And obviously tankeray is mine where I can probably drink a whole bottle and not have a headache the next day.

Basically it's just the way it is.

James, if I went off to Gordon's or anything like that, I'd probably wake up with an absolute steamer.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's just one of those you set your mind on and

New Year's Eve 2018.

So I just started having Invisalign, which is the braces where you can't see them.

And my dentist had said you can't really drink stuff, but maybe gin and tonics are fine.

So New Year's Eve was like, what I'm going to be on the gin and tonics.

And

so I was drinking so many gin and tonics.

And I hadn't had any alcohol since getting the braces in.

This is my first night on the booze.

Got really, really drunk.

Stayed at these lovely people's house.

I didn't really know them that well, but friends of friends.

You knew them before the night started, right?

Yeah, but only vaguely.

Only vaguely.

And I went to sleep completely blasted.

Woke up just totally disorientated.

Didn't know what room I was in, what house I was in, where I was.

I really needed a toilet.

Went to what I thought was the door.

Basically walked into a walk-in wardrobe and pissed myself.

Oh, yeah.

It was horrible.

The thing is, we've all done that.

While saying the word no repeatedly.

Funny enough.

As it was out there, going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I did just that after a night out with

Karen Vision Fair, I mean

mentioned the not mentioned the hotel's name in Henley, big sesh.

Yeah, got to bed, sort of woke up, go toilet in the middle of the night, door sort of closed and I was out in the corridor in the pants

in my pants.

I couldn't believe it.

Another fine message has got you in the corner.

I know, so then I was looking for a towel or something, just a cupboard to sort of cover myself up.

Sort of door was open and I walked into someone's room.

I couldn't believe it.

and they were just like led on the bed saying hello and i went oh hello and i walked out again it was like

so i had to walk down into reception in my pants to say i've locked myself out please can you let me in so was that a night on the floor clearers no it wasn't that was pre-floor clearers that was probably stellar

a hotel clear by the sound of it

luckily it was late in the in the middle of the night so james is quite hungover today so i was really enjoying that floor clearer chat because floor clearers to me sounds like an absolute dream drink.

I love ginger beer.

Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's a bit of a dangerous one because it tastes so good and you could do it

very easily.

But you could what all you've done really is scaled it up massively, haven't you?

So you could do like a double gin top-tock with ginger beer, and I'm sure it's true.

Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

But that wouldn't be a floor clearer.

No, not knowing a floor clearer.

The floor clearer needs to be

you need to get loud, basically.

You need to get loud and lairy.

Not too lairy where you obviously want to fight anyone, but

in your own pup.

So is your drink, though for this menu a gin and tonic or a floor clearer gin and tonic it's a ginantonic yeah floor clearers they've been they've been actually retired now yeah yeah i mean they weren't doing me any favors whatsoever so they've been retired gin and tonic is the drink

doesn't pay well with a meal either a floor clearer no

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We're going into the dessert.

So like, this is always my favorite course.

Ed's favorite is the starter.

Yeah.

Well as I was sort of like going through you know my early stages of my career in the late 80s and 90s it's got to be a lemon tart.

Lovely.

Lemon tart, a nice fragrant acidic lemon tart because

every chef worth their salt at that time had an amazing lemon tart on the menu, be it Marco or La Rouse or Nico,

Raymond, they all all had their own version of lemon tart.

I think I've got all of them.

And I think the best one, the one I would always use, I worked for Novelli, Jean-Christophe Novelli, for eight years, off and on, and he had an amazing one.

So I robbed that, and that would probably be my dream dessert.

So, what about that makes it the best one?

Lemony.

Proper lemony.

That's what you look for in a lemon tart.

Yeah, just lovely, lovely, sweet, crisp,

you know, mount-in-the-mouth pastry.

Just a lemon tart.

You cook it.

It's just wobbling, just sort of, you know, got that that give in it.

Just moist and soft and acidic.

I like acid,

acid desserts after, I like acids, so I better not go there.

I like acid desserts

after a meal, you know.

I think it's quite fresh.

I don't like heavy, heavy stuff.

So that's, you know, obviously

cartamel is home of a very famous sticky toffee pudding.

It is, it is, and everyone loves it.

I don't, I don't, well, I like it.

It's all right, but I wouldn't choose

19 years of becoming one of them.

Exactly.

Don't slag off sticky toffee pudding.

Team Cartmell.

Team Cartmel.

I know.

I might have the odd sticky toffee pudding.

The town's famous for it, right?

It is.

And I think you can buy it in Waitrose now, actually.

Can you?

Yeah, it's the cartmel sticky toffee pudding.

You can buy in Waitrose, I believe.

Yeah.

I kind of

have to plan my meal before it if I was going to have something heavy like sticky toffee pudding.

I'd have to have like a light mouth.

I think it's a home thing, isn't it?

Not a really restaurant thing.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely a home thing, you know, when you're really got the munchies.

And And oh, yeah, I'm going to stick in a sticky topping.

Madonna does it, apparently.

Does she?

Yeah.

We don't know how sticky toppy buddies.

Oh, yeah.

She gets them shipped over.

From Cartmell?

I believe so, yeah.

Yeah.

She hasn't shipped over to her.

She hasn't shipped over to the Madonna.

The Madonna.

Yeah,

they have a very famous fan base, so I think she's the most famous of the lot.

Are you sure it's not Maradona?

Because that would make more sense.

Yeah, he's definitely had too many sticky toppy buddings recently.

A few pies as well, by the way.

Yeah, he went with the cocaine method of losing weight for a long time.

Clever.

rather than the sparkling water method.

Yeah.

Do you want to change your

mum and change your tart?

I love lemon tart.

My mum used to buy the Marks and Spencer's Tartar Citron for years when I was there.

And that's...

They make some amazing tarts in Marks and Spencer's.

Have you had the pineapple tart that they make?

It's unbelievable.

It's the most amazing thing ever.

I didn't say pineapple tart because I didn't want to say I buy

my dessert would be a pineapple tart from Marks and Spencer's.

It's something I can actually make, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's like a tart base.

It's got this sort of like really sort of nice pineapple type jam in it in the bottom.

Then a really lovely cream of pineapple.

It's got quite a vanilla taste to it as well, really soft, almost like eating meringue is.

And then it's got a pineapple

frosting or icing on the top.

From full pineapple.

And it is unbelievable.

But not all Marks and Spencer's do it.

Okay.

You've got to find them out.

You've got to find the right one.

So the one in Chichester does it.

Right, okay.

So I know it does it.

The one in Worthing doesn't.

Because I've got a house on the coast and

I've got a guy who's a bit of a shopping fiend.

He just goes around shops and buys the most obscure things.

And he found it and he introduced it to me.

And I'll be forever in his debt.

But it was unbelievable.

And yeah, you need to seek it out because it's crazy.

You don't want to go tart crazy.

I'm going to try that pin up a little bit.

Yeah, I know.

As soon as you ask something to describe it, you'll get on board already describe it.

I didn't actually Google it.

That might have been easier.

You know, Marks and Spencer's stores, which stock, pineapple tart.

Yeah.

That's on the search history.

Are you having anything with this lemon tart?

Or is it on its own?

Just on its own.

Yeah, maybe just glazed on the top.

So a little dusting of sugar, blowtorch, got a nice crispy sort of burnt sugar

sort of texture on the top.

I'm so happy.

We've had chefs on before, but I'm so happy that someone's finally brought a blowtorch in, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, a a good blowtorch none of these wishy washy ones you find in holfords you know one of the big sort of like an industrial one yeah yeah you know proper one you know scorch it yeah right well let me read your menu back to you see how you feel about it yep um you would like sparkled in water uh papa doms you would like a sometam papaya salad with singer beer yep you would like a moussaka as a main uh from

what was it what was it venus greek tavenna but you've cooked it at the venus greek Taverna.

I've cooked at the Venusaur.

Well, I've cooked it everywhere.

Maybe so.

I'll remember the recipe for the rest of my life.

So, the one on your dream menu is one that you've cooked at the Venus Grandna.

Venus Greek Taverna, yeah, that's the one.

Side dish, Gratin Dauphinois potatoes, drink, gin and tonic, dessert, the Jean-Christophe Nivelli's lemon tart.

That's the one.

Sounds delicious.

Absolutely amazing.

Very nice journey as well.

The whole

through that menu.

We went to Thailand.

We went to Southampton.

we've been all over the place yeah yeah thank you so much for coming in

thank you

there it is the off menu of simon rogan a delicious off menu delish i like that i like that it was lemon tart and i thought that's nice it's that sounds delicious feels quite a simple dessert for a chef and then he just blowtorched it right at the end blowtorched it but also

little pineapple tart shout out oh shout out for the pineapple tart which i could see in your eyes you're definitely gonna go out and buy it it stole the show not even on his menu stole the show for me did it oh it stole the show i don't really like pineapple what

that'll be a secret ingredient in a future episode pineapple oh that'll be a dark day for me i'll be oh i love pineapple i love it in a tart i love it in a nando's wrap talking of secret ingredients simon rogan did not say corgetti he did not say corgetti thank you simon imagine if he had

i would have been god smacked he got the train from the lake distribut this morning Did you kick him out like Fred Flintstone?

Bye-bye.

Yeah.

Kick him out like, oh, okay, I see what you mean.

Fred Flintstone throws out the dog and then the Dino, doesn't he?

Yeah, and then the dinosaur.

Is it a dinosaur?

Yeah.

Well, whatever happens, the animal, his pet kicks him out.

Yeah, sabertoo tiger, maybe.

Yeah.

And then he jumps back through the window and then it kicks him out.

Yeah, and then bang on the door.

I got confused because my go-to Flintstone's reference is the car with

no bottom.

Yep.

And then it's him sliding down the dinosaur neck, and I'd probably go sabre-tooth first.

So I was just thinking of the other two before I got to that one.

Yeah, and the

big old brontosaurus ribs.

Big old brontosaurus ribs, of course, at the drive-in.

So thank you, Simon Rogan.

It was a wonderful menu.

It was lovely to meet Simon Rogan.

If you like the sound of Simon and his food, if you go on simonrogan.co.uk, there's more info on his restaurants there.

I'm really going to try and go to his London restaurant.

I'm so excited.

Yeah,

hit me up when you're doing it, Ed.

I will, man.

I'll hit you up.

So I will not drink.

You will.

Ever again.

You don't think you're going to drink ever again?

I'm going out for a floor clearer right now.

No way.

Never, ever, ever.

Quadruple gin, ginger beer, anger store of bitters, eight ice cubes in a pint and glass.

Okay, I'll drink that.

Yeah.

I also, I do a radio show on Sunday mornings on Radio X with Matthew Crosby, and there's a podcast of that.

James, who are you and what are you doing?

My name is James Acaster.

I'm hungover and I need to lay down.

Thank you, James.

So thanks very much for listening.

We will see you again another time in the Dream Restaurant.

Come on, I'm hungry.

don't know how bad I'm hungry.

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