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Enjoy North East
BATTLE COMMENCES FOR NORTH EAST CHEF
Award-winning chef Dave Kennedy has every right to feel smug as he sits on the brink of winning another top culinary accolade. But as Jane Hall discovers, nothing could be further from the truth.
DAVE Kennedy has two people to thank for setting him off on the path to culinary greatness - his grandmother and his old school friend, Michael Caines.
No, not "you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" Michael Caine. "I'm not that old," Dave says with a wry smile. "I do like the Italian Job, though."
This Michael has an ‘S' on the end of his surname and is one of Britain's most acclaimed chefs with an MBE and many Michelin stars to his credit.
Two years older than Dave who has just turned 40, Michael Caines with an ‘S' came back to give a career talk at his old school. In the audience at Hele's School for Boys in Exeter, Devon, was Dave, a troubled teenager who admits any skills he possessed turned towards the practical rather than the academic.
From a forces family - his grandmother had been in the Army during the last war and his grandfather had served in the Royal Navy, while both his father and elder brother had opted for the RAF - Dave too was drifting towards the same profession for want of anything better to do.
Having been raised by his grandmother in a small village on the outskirts of Exeter after his parents split-up when he was 12, he had come to appreciate the delights of good home cooking. "My gran was a cook in the Army and was amazing. I can remember walking into her kitchen and being enchanted by the smell of home baking.
"I think my love of good food started with my gran, but while I loved watching her cook and helping out, I don't think I ever saw myself making a career out of it, not seriously anyway. I don't think I actually knew what I wanted to do, but with so many of the family in the forces that seemed to be what I was drifting towards, even though I knew it wasn't for me."
Just as well then that Michael Caines bounced back into his old school at a critical moment in Dave's life, and opened his friend's eyes.
"He was so full of enthusiasm and passion for what he was doing and made it sound so exciting. I was completely taken in, " Dave recalls. "Michael made me realise there could be a future in working with food."
At 16 Dave enrolled on a City and Guilds catering course at college in Exeter. The first year he "got in with the wrong crowd," and began to drift down the old dead end path. Thankfully, in his second year he changed classes, met a new set of people who preferred stirring it in rather than stirring it up, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Twenty three years on and Dave is still friends with Michael Caines and can justifiably lay claim to being one of the nation's top chefs. Crowned North East Chef of the Year in 2007, he then went on to take third spot in the Knorr National Chef of the Year competition in 2008, whose previous winners include Gordon Ramsay.
Now the co-owner of the Black Door Group with restaurants in Morpeth, Newcastle and North Shields, is through to the final of the prestigious British Culinary Federation's Chef of the Year contest. Dave will be heading for London on March 1 to fly the flag for the North East in the annual competition which while it rarely grabs the national headlines, is seen as a benchmark of excellence by those working in the catering industry.
Dave describes it as "a chefs' chef event, but one that if you win brings a huge amount of kudos your way. I am chuffed to bits I'm through to the final. It is always a scary prospect having to cook live in front of your peers and impress them, but I am so pleased that I am going to be able to fly the flag for the region and show that Newcastle is an area that produces good food and can take its place alongside other areas.
"Too often the North East is written off in food terms, but there are some extremely talented cooks up here doing good food."
Dave can justifiably lay claim to being in that top echelon, but unlike others doesn't court the limelight.
In an industry renowned for its egos, Dave is uncharacteristically self-effacing. He prefers to let his food do the talking rather than his mouth. He enjoys doing live cookery demonstrations - after a nervous start in this arena - but you will rarely see him on TV, and print interviews are few and far between.
Not because he thinks himself above all that, but because "I'm happier being in the kitchen. I don't want to appear arrogant. I am, by nature, a reticent person. I plod on."
As he sits on the brown leather sofa in the waiting area of the Brasserie Black Door at the Biscuit Factory in Newcastle (cited by Hairy Biker Simon King as one of his favourite places to eat out in the North East), Dave is nervously twisting the strings of his blue and white striped apron through his fingers.
It is late afternoon on yet another miserable January day, and the restaurant is in the post-lunch lull. Dave has time to sit back and relax for a couple of hours before evening brings another rush of customers, drawn to the Brasserie - as they are to the Black Door at Morpeth and Cafe Black Door at the iconic Magnesia Bank pub in North Shields - by the quality, well-priced locally produced food.
The menu at all three of Dave's establishments which he runs with business partner David Ladd, are among the finest you will find anywhere. Dave dislikes categorising the food he serves, but on being pushed says: "Locally sourced food cooked well at a reasonable price."
Expect to find plenty of seafood sourced from North Shields Fish Quay - but the less popular varieties like gurnard and flounder rather than turbot and cod; Wallington beef and lamb produced by National Trust tenant farmers in Northumberland; vegetables from Tritlington and Carroll's Heritage Potatoes; venison from Ridleys of Acomb; eggs from Sunny Hill near Belford, and milk and cream from County Durham-based Lanchester Dairies.
Hexham-based Fentimans botanically brewed soft drinks are behind the bar along with Alnwick Rum, locally produced Jack Cain gin, and a host of regional beers. Dave is currently in negotiations with Allendale Brewery for them to produce a special Black Door Ale.
If Dave has to put a tag on his style he concedes to "French techniques with honest English ingredients."
It reflects his career. He started at the Michelin-starred Grovesnor House Hotel in London at 18 followed by The Halkin in Belgravia, before heading North to Newcastle to work for Terry Laybourne at 21 Queen Street.
"My wife, Deborah, is from Newcastle, and she wanted to come home. I am a hoarder of magazines and newspaper articles and I had kept one of Terry's, so I wrote to him. Fortunately, he had a post coming up at the old 21 Queen Street, so I left London and started at the restaurant on August 5, 1991. I don't know if it's good or bad the date is still etched on my memory.
"It was an up and coming restaurant. Coming from London, I thought I was the bees' knees, but Terry soon put me in my place by throwing a leg of venison at me! I realised I still had a lot to learn.
"It was in 1992 that Terry got his Michelin star. It was a hard kitchen, but even harder after that. It was a good learning kitchen, though."
Above: Celebrity chef Michael Caines
Then Dave got the chance to join his friend Michael Caines at Gidleigh Park in Devon. "I left Terry only to be told that Michael had lost his arm in a road accident. I didn't know what to do, but Terry gave me the chance to run Cafe 21 at Darras in 1994, which was awarded two AA rosettes and then within 12 months of opening had been voted cafe of the year by the Observer Magazine.
"I then went back to Queen Street before being offered a job at Odette's in London where I stayed for 12 months before Debs and I had our first child, Luke, who's now 12, and decided to up sticks again and return to Newcastle.
"I gave Terry a call and did another three years with him."
Spells at other top North East eateries and the birth of his daughter, Daniella, nine, followed before Dave opened the original Black Door in Clayton Street, Newcastle, in 2003. Greg Bureau - now running the award-winning Bouchon in Hexham - worked front of house, while Dave weaved his magic in the kitchen.
"Everybody said it wouldn't work because of its location, but we quickly made a name for ourselves. We got two AA rosettes as well as the UK award for excellence from the Hardens guide, county restaurant of the year from the Good Food Guide and Metro restaurant of the year.
"Michelin came and told us that within the next six months we would probably get a star, but by then we had closed and I had moved to the Biscuit Factory."
Surprisingly, fine dining honours have eluded Dave since. While the Black Door Group is in all the food guides, a Michelin star has failed to materialise. Which is odd given that Dave is a former North East Chef of the Year and his prodigee, 23-year-old Andrew Wilkinson, is the current holder of the title.
Dave is reluctant to discuss his lack of Michelin success, for fear of what he might say. It is the only time he looks angry. He clearly feels as a chef he is up there with the top tier, but admits perhaps his downfall is he is not pushy enough . "I used to hanker after a Michelin. I thought that was the be all and end all and thought after that you had made it.
"Now all I want is a successful restaurant. If Michelin comes along then great, but I'm not going after it now. "
Instead his sights are set on winning the British Culinary Federation Chef of the Year crown. "I might just crack open the champagne and shout from the rooftops if I win that one," he says with a laugh.
• Brasserie Black Door, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle, (0191) 260 5411; Black Door Bar and Dining Room, Morpeth, (01670) 516 200; Cafe Black Door, Magnesia Bank, North Shields, (0191) 257 4831, www.blackdoorgroup.co.uk
Above: Chef David Kennedcy at work in the kitchen
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