‘Between me, just a young boy, and a drunk chef, we kept things afloat and got the service out. I was hooked’. Anton Edelman is telling me about his roots in cookery as we lounge in the armchairs by the bar of his restaurant Allium in Westminster just before lunch.
‘I started in my uncle's place, I wouldn’t call it a hotel more a restaurant with rooms, ah that was a long time ago now,’ he pauses to reflect on his years of cooking. ‘It was up in the Alps near the Austrian border, a big restaurant. The two chefs were always drunk! One day I was working there in my summer holidays from school and one stabbed himself and so I stepped into the kitchen.’ He chuckles softly at the memory. He chuckles a lot and speaks quietly, not perhaps how you’d expect a man who for many years commanded the mighty engine rooms of the kitchens of The Savoy Hotel to behave. I rather imagined I’d be meeting a fearsome man, someone like Swelter in Gormenghast, a vast fat man, half chef, half ogre, constantly on the cusp of blinding rage and throwing pans at anyone who crossed him.
In fact Anton is very laid back, happy to chat just before lunch service begins at the restaurant whose kitchen he has been running for just over two and half years now. It’s been a good time. ‘We’ve had good write ups, ‘he agrees calmly. ‘It’s not my first restaurant since leaving The Savoy though, I have a share in Brasserie St Quentin too.’ It’s clear that he does not chase praise or stars. His work history is classical, no meteoric rise to fame on the back of a TV friendly face or bankable affectations. It’s been solid hard work in hotels and he has the respect of his peers and the courage of his experience to rely on.
‘Oh yes, I come from a time well before celebrity chefs,’ he agrees. ‘Why did I become a cook? Because I was a young man looking for a job and I was offered one. It attracted me, too. I’m afraid it’s that simple. Nothing is ever planned, eh? He didn’t stay long in Germany though, after two positions he was over here. Soon he was head chef at 90 Park Lane. Ah the 1980’s, the era of Nouvelle Cuisine eh? I snigger expecting him to join in but not at all.
‘People don’t realise what a lot of good Nouvelle Cuisine did,’ he states firmly. ‘There was bit of a backlash against it soon after but it moved things on remarkably. And this country embraced it perhaps more than any other.’ This leads him on make the often-missed point that Nouvelle Cuisine was restaurant led. ‘This was not a cookery style that began in a glossy magazine, it came out of the restaurants directly, ‘ he insists. ‘Today I think the magazines, particularly those that come direct from supermarkets, are little more than big adverts for whatever the supermarkets want to sell. They tell you their recipes are the latest fashion but often it’s a fashion that suits them; perhaps they have a large amount of a certain brand of olive oil to sell. Suddenly it’s recipes that need lots of olive oil.’ Anton is well aware that supermarket magazines are there to work for the supermarket, but nonetheless he is disappointed at the influence they have on the nation’s eating.
I suggest that without the supermarkets we wouldn’t have the produce to cook with but they can drive down quality in their desire for low prices. Anton agrees but adds. ‘They do remove seasonality,’ he says. ‘But I’m all for that, lets face it there are only a few things that are truly great in season. Right now, for example, do you really want to eat root vegetables and kale for the next few months? Of course asparagus is better in May, but you know….’ he trails off then rallies. ‘For me its not so much the seasonality issue but the distance these vegetables cover to get here, they can spend weeks in transit and were probably picked under ripe. That’s the main problem.’
And the cost to the environment in fuel burnt? I suggest. Anton isn’t convinced, ‘Well that is an issue but how can we say that’s bad while we jet around the world on cheap flights or burn petrol to go to holiday homes?’
Needless to say the dishes at Allium make no concession to any fads, they just concentrate on quality. Anton Edelman is a rare chef; calm and easy going, yet with a steel core when it comes to creating great food for his customers. From the way he greets diners by name as winds his way back to his kitchen, it’s clear he’s succeeding with plenty of repeat business. It was bad luck for the stabbed chef all those years ago, but good news for us.
