‘FOOD IS SOURCED LOCALLY, BUT “LOCAL” CHANGES FROM WEEK TO WEEK’
Iremember the moment when we realised that there was scope to open a restaurant alongside the circus. It was in 2000 or perhaps 2001. The circus was standing in Minety, a sleepy village in north Wiltshire. My brother and his wife had come to stay and I remember cooking asparagus for them after the show. I took the roasting asparagus from the little wagon oven and in that moment, I couldn’t find anywhere in the crowded wooden wagon to put the hot enamel dish. I ran down the wagon steps on to the field and put the scorching enamel dish on the long grass and thistles. My husband Toti, my brother and his wife were sitting outside. I think I pretty much served the asparagus straight from the dish, sizzling on the grass. The freshly roasted food, the long grass, the sun setting over unruly Minety hedges, the traffic sounds from the Malmesbury to Cricklade road, the tent, the anticipation of food, the excitement of the show filling the air – it was a classic after-show circus dinner, and seemed to be something that other people would enjoy.
‘Circus Sauce was, from the beginning, a travelling restaurant. It was perhaps, in inception, like the cantinas that used to spring up alongside Napoleon’s travelling army – a kind of renegade organic inevitable offshoot of a group of travelling people. Food is sourced locally but because it is a travelling restaurant, “local” changes from week to week. Those early hair-raising days have slowly changed into a slicker, faster operation led by head chef Ols Halas. He heads up a team of 12 young, hardworking people who, week after week, move the entire restaurant from site to site, establishing a network of suppliers all over the South West. But the vaudevillian nature of the restaurant has not been lost and between the main course and pudding, Ols and his crew stage a puppet show from the restaurant wagon windows.’