My cousin Gen contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if she could write an article about me, I thought she did such a great job I should post it on our website, she is hoping to become a food writer.
The sweeping views, glistening waters and epic grandeur of the Lake District make it easy to understand why the region has been inspiring the work of countless artists and writers for centuries. However, the thought of this breathtaking scenery does not so obviously conjure up images of gastronomic beauty. There is one chef who aims to change this.
Currently unknown in the wider culinary world, Peter Sidwell is something of a local celebrity in Keswick, where for the past six years he has lived and worked, running his coffee shop ands delicatessen Good Taste, cookery school and outside catering service.
“The Lakes is like a chef’s playground. It is a great big larder when you’re a chef. I just have to walk to work and look around and I am inspired and ready to cook,” Peter enthuses when I meet him for lunch on one of his rare visits to London.
“The area I live in has been the making of me. It just set something off inside me. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop – if I’m out and about some days it takes me twice as long to get somewhere because I’ve either seen something growing or I have stumbled across a farm with a sign selling produce. I just can’t resist, I have to go and have a taste, and if it’s good it will be in my kitchen an hour later.”
Peter was not born and bred in the Lake District, and he discovered his love of cooking long before settling there. Growing up in Pocklington, a market town just east of York, Peter dreamt of becoming a professional rugby player, but a serious head injury at the age of 15 relegated him to the sidelines. Encouraged by his mum to get out and find a new interest, he went knocking on restaurant and pub doors, eventually convincing a head chef at a village pub that he was “worth a punt”.
From there he went on to study at Beverley College, which led to stints at some of the best hotels in York. He then finished his training in London.
“I went to London in the early nineties. You have to realise the food scene in the UK has changed a massive amount, there were not as many high quality restaurants around the country then as there are now, so if you wanted to really cook you had to go to London.”
Once there, Peter worked at Harvey’s, under Marco Pierre White, as infamous for his explosive temper as his exceptional culinary skills, and surely an intimidating atmosphere for any young chef.
“It was intense,” Peter admits, “I have never met a man more focused on one thing, however I was only a young man then, a commis chef, lowest of the low, and I could count on one hand the amount of times he spoke to me.”
Despite the lack of one-on-one contact, Peter believes the attention to detail he has now, owes much to this experience, “I learned a massive amount about how to taste food and the confidence to adjust things along the way. To check, and then check again and again.”
Peter’s career continued to develop until he found himself working in corporate cooking and spending more time in a business suit than chef’s whites. It was a realisation that led him and his wife Emma to move to the Lake District.
“We’d spent three years there when Emma was studying to be a teacher. We both loved the outdoors and had such good memories. So we went up to the Lake District looking for a reason for us to be able to live there. We went to Keswick and had such a great weekend and thought this is the place for us. We sold up in York and off we went.”
Having made one life-changing decision, Peter made another. He set up his own coffee shop. I was intrigued to know why he chose a coffee shop and delicatessen instead of a restaurant.
“I had spent the last 10 years in a hot kitchen never seeing the customers, just getting feedback from the waiter. It just wasn’t me – I like to be in the thick of it. I spend a lot of time in cafes and coffee shops and thought I could focus all my experience, energy and passion for food into a more daytime-focused business, a lively place where people could come and use it as an extension of their own living room to meet friends and family. I wanted people to be able to enjoy my food every day, not just special occasions.”
It was clearly the right decision. Having built up a strong relationship with his regulars, he has recently started opening several nights a week, in reaction to the repeated requests for evening meals. Serving a modern Lake District bistro-style food dubbed the “new iconic Lakeland classics”, the menu includes wild duck with parsnip chips, confit of slow roast shoulder of local hogget, Allerdale goats cheese and red pepper en croute and baked vanilla cheesecake made with a Grasmere gingerbread base.
His conversation and expression just bubbles with that same energy and passion he talks of. You know it is something he really believes in, and six years has done nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for engaging with his clientele and being involved in their lives.
These customers have had a profound effect upon Peter’s work. He attributes his many business ventures, including a recipe book, cookery school and outside catering service, to their suggestions.
“It’s all linked with the whole ethos of the café. I just enjoy cooking for people in every way and each addition of the business has been a natural progression. Open a café then people want to know your recipes, then people want the book, then they want to cook with you. So it’s all about what the customers are asking from me.”
When it was first suggested that he wrote a book, Peter dismissed the idea, convinced his dyslexia meant he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. But on holiday in Tuscany, he ended up buying a leather-bound journal from a market and started filling it with his recipes.
Again thanks to his clientele, he met the owner of a local publishing business, a food photographer and a journalist, and soon enough the book, Simply Good Taste, was born.
Packed with stunning photography, mouth-watering recipes and easy-to-follow instructions, it is a beautiful collection that perfectly encapsulates Peter’s great loves; food and the Lakes. It is organised according to occasion; Out and About, Family, Boys’ Weekend, Café, BBQ and Something Special, and covers a wide range of cuisines, focusing on regional produce rather than regional dishes. But it was not an easy ride to publication. Not one publisher would take him on, but Peter, with his natural chef’s determination, simply decided to publish it himself.
“It was not the usual route. I had to get publishers to notice me by going alone and showing them my product sells,” Peter explains. And this he did. In 2007 Simply Good Taste was sold across a number of retailers in the Cumbria area, as well as in the coffee shop, and Peter achieved sales of 4,000 in just 10 months; a figure that got him noticed on his return to London. He is now signed to Simon and Schuster and Simply Good Taste will be republished on 6th April.
Nowadays, in the multi-million pound industry of celebrity chefs, it is rare for a book to come before a television appearance. But, as is becoming apparent, Peter is never one to do things by the rules. He recently started filming a television series that, like the book, will focus not only on his food but his beautiful surroundings. Television was not something Peter was instinctively drawn to, and it seems he is keen for the Lakes to be the star of the show, “I hope it makes people think ‘Wow! I really want to go here on holiday.’ I want people to cook great food and enjoy themselves. We are very lucky up here – not only do we have some of the greatest produce, but we have some of the very best views to enjoy them in.”
Peter repeatedly uses the same phrase during our meeting; “I want to bring the Lake District into my kitchen and take my kitchen into the Lake District.” He certainly did that last May, when for two days, as part of the Keswick Mountain Festival, he ran England’s highest restaurant on the peak of Skiddaw, cooking a three-course meal for 30 guests, 3,000 feet above the Lake District. Filmed for Peter’s podcast and local news, if this first brush with television is anything to go by, Peter’s series will be a fascinating exploration of a much underrated area of England’s culinary tradition.
When Peter talks about food, he is knowledgeable and passionate without ever making his listener feel patronised or unable. There is an honesty about him that perhaps comes from his choice to run a coffee shop over a restaurant, in an area not known for its food. He is not hiding in the kitchen, but is instead front-of-house talking and listening to his customers. As I come away from our meeting, despite my stomach nearly bursting from a delicious three-course lunch, I feel inspired to get home, grab some food and get cooking, possibly in the great outdoors.
Genevieve Sweet
