No sprouts or turkey at chef’s family feast
MEET the chef who has made £1,000 cooking Christmas dinner at a family home.
But for somebody who has spent most of his working life in a kitchen on December 25 it’s possibly not that surprising to discover that chef Gareth Dobbs isn’t the biggest fan of turkey and sprouts.
In fact, the executive chef at Cardiff restaurant Barley & Rye, in Greyfriars Road, steers clear of the staple food of the nation’s Christmas dinner plates when cooking a festive meal for his own family.
With youngsters aged seven and one, the 42-year-old chef will this year take a rare Christmas Day off to be with his wife and children, having worked on December 25 for most of his kitchen career.
And he’ll be ensuring there isn’t a turkey or a sprout in sight.
“I quite like cooking a Christmas dinner for the family,” said the Cardiff-born culinary expert. “We’re having duck for Christmas dinner this year and we had goose last year.
“I don’t tend to go for turkey as I don’t think much of it – I’d rather have a chicken. It always baffles me why people eat turkey on Christmas Day – it’s the driest, blandest meat that there is.
“It’s the traditional meat to have and as it’s tradition I guess people don’t want anything different.” And sprouts don’t fare any better.
“Dylan, my eldest, won’t eat sprouts and neither will I. I’m not a fan,” he said.
After leaving Stanwell High School, in Penarth, following his GCSEs, Gareth started off as a pot-washer at the Four Seasons Hotel in Park Lane, London, before rapidly working his way up the ladder, with senior roles at some of the most renowned restaurants in the UK including Michelin-star eateries Le Gavroche and Gordon Ramsey’s Pétrus.
“Most of the places I’ve been at I’ve worked on Christmas Day,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that ever bothered me until I had kids.
“It’s just another day – but a day I could earn a lot more money by working. Back then it used to be triple time.”
The chef, who is also building up his own fine culinary services company, Cegin Burlington, recalled Christmas Days of yore when he made some serious money catering for families in London and the north west.
“We’d put together Christmas dinner parties at people’s houses, and I remember one year we did a Christmas dinner party at a house in Alderley Edge, where many of the footballers who play for the big clubs in the north west live. Paying a chef a grand to cook, serve, and wash up is probably an hour’s wage for them.
“I went to Australia in the February for two months after working Christmas Day and that one day working paid for my flight.
“So for chefs it’s an opportunity to make some good money. If you haven’t got kids you’d be happy to work it.”
And he admitted there would also be plenty of Christmas spirit in the kitchen.
“There’s always a good atmosphere in the kitchen among the staff,” he said. “You do have a bit of a laugh.”