Path of yeast resistance:
TV cook reveals carefree approach to Sunday dinners with the family
As one of the country’s most celebrated chefs, with three Michelin stars under his belt, you would be forgiven for assuming an invite for Sunday dinner at Tom Kerridge’s home would mean dining on intricately plated portions that spill over with flavour.
In reality, the 49-year-old leaves the sous vide and bain-marie shelved in his professional kitchen, opting instead for a more relaxed, laidback approach for one of his favourite meals.
“I don’t cook The Hand and Flowers food at home, that’s for sure,” laughed Kerridge, referencing his eatery in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, the only gastropub in the UK with two Michelin stars.
“In professional kitchens, there’s 10 chefs but when you’re at home, there’s just you cooking for two, three or four people. I’m the same when I’m at home – I cook for myself, my wife and my little man.
“My world is the same as everybody else’s, it’s just about putting that little bit of chef knowledge and technique into the dishes that I do.”
Throughout his childhood, Sunday lunch was always the highlight of the week, with everyone around the table together, enjoying steaming plates of simple, inexpensive yet delicious food, all prepared by his mum.
“I came from a single-parent family, and Sunday lunch would be the one meal that my mum would probably cook,” explained Kerridge, who is married to sculptor Beth Cullen Kerridge, and has a son, Acey.
“Coming back home on Sunday at lunchtime, after playing rugby, walking into the house there would always be the smell of a roast dinner.
“Money was a little tight, so we would have the roast potatoes, carrots and other normal Sunday lunch stuff but my mum would roast sausage meat, which you used to be able to get in a 500g roll.
“As opposed to a joint of beef, you would have slices of baked sausage – and it was lush and would go really crispy around the outside.
“It was a bit like a cheat’s way of doing a meat loaf.
“It was always about the generosity, the smell and the excitement. It wasn’t always about a full rib of beef, cooked perfectly medium-rare, and served with freshly grated horseradish. That wasn’t my background growing up.
“For us, it was the smell, the flavours, and sitting down, having a chat and a laugh.
Even if you’re only there for 15 minutes, it was that little bit of connection.”
As well as sparking a lifelong passion for the buzz of the family dinner table, these feelgood weekly meals have inspired the top chef ’s latest TV series, the aptly named Tom Kerridge’s Sunday Lunch, which begins airing tomorrow on the Food Network and Discovery+.
Rather than replicating the standard celebrity chef cookery series formula, Kerridge was keen to try something new, not only modernising the dishes but also bringing the production crew out from behind the camera. The result is more real cooking for real families.
He said: “You know how cookery on TV is filmed almost in the third person? It’s this make-believe world? We were trying to get the vibe across of, ‘Yes, we’re in this world and we’re cooking but it happens because there’s also two cameramen, a sound guy, and a director’. The way we tried to describe it was making fun, not-so-serious TV. I like the escapism of television, don’t get me wrong. There’s the aspirational wants for your kitchen, whether it’s beautiful pans that Nigella Lawson’s cooking on, or the wonderful homely space that maybe Rick Stein is in, or whatever else.
“Those TV shows are beautiful and brilliant but they are a bit like Grand Designs aren’t they? It’s magic, you love it and you can escape for half an hour.
“But, actually, we wanted our show to be a lot more connected, a lot more doable and a lot more approachable.”
Having recently collaborated with footballer Marcus Rashford to create 52 healthy, pocket-friendly meals for the Full Time campaign – which supports the nationwide #EndChildFoodPoverty initiative – Kerridge was also keen to bring aspects of his social media video tutorials to the series. He said:
“We wanted to make viewers feel that it’s accessible, that you could have a go at doing the recipes, and it doesn’t matter if you drop something on the floor or you get it a bit wrong. That’s just the realities of cooking at home.
“The show is much more… it’s a lot freer, which is very much how Sundays feel. The recipes are more about the vibe rather than just roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast carrots, peas, broccoli and gravy. You can do loads more with that sense, that vibe, that feeling of cooking together.”
As well as spearheading eight restaurants, and becoming a popular, recognisable face on television, appearing as both a contestant and judge on BBC’s Great British Menu and fronting his own shows, Kerridge is also about to release his 10th cookbook.
Similar to his previous books, including Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food, Real Life
Recipes, published next week, is filled with hardworking recipes that don’t require a qualification from Le Cordon Bleu to serve up delicious dishes. What’s more, Kerridge has been mindful of the difficult circumstances many families currently face.
“Since I’ve been doing the Full Time meals campaign, I’ve been very away of what’s around the corner, the price increases that are happening and the issues that people are going to be facing,” he explained.
“It’s not just about being economically cash poor, it’s about being time poor, and then about saving on heating or electricity or the washing up.
“So, I wanted to put recipes together that are based on real life. Often, you get in on a Tuesday night after finishing work at seven o’clock, and the last thing you want to do is spend the next two and a half hours making tea – you’re going to open the fridge and go, ‘I’ll get a pan of pasta on, what am I going to serve with it?’
“The new book is also about putting dishes together that use supermarket products and, unashamedly, things like readymade pastry or jam in a jar or bread crumbs that you can buy ready done.
“It’s about those kind of things that are time efficient, as well as pocket efficient, creating lovely recipes that work through the week.
“How many of us really ever have a starter, a main course and pudding on a Tuesday?
“It doesn’t happen, does it? So, it’s also about embracing real life as opposed to the pretend world of books and television. All my books have had purpose and focus.”
With a list of accolades as long as the ingredients for an Ottolenghi recipe, Kerridge has become one of the country’s shining stars and is often described as “the people’s chef” thanks to his down-to-earth nature. Perhaps then it’s not surprising that he points not to his own skills or experience as a reason for his success but to the guidance of his mum.
He said: “To go from an 18-year-old who grew up on an estate in Gloucester, single-parent family, to this point now, the businesses that we have, the television I do, the books that I do...a lot of it comes from being installed with a good work ethic at a young age by my mum.
“Get out there, work very hard, give 100% all the time, and always believe that you can achieve something. Whether it’s in the restaurant or on television, I want to learn skill and different things, so it’s constantly moving and adapting. It’s such an exciting world to be in, it’s never stale.”