Kiki Burton
Kiki Burton of Cardamom & Dill talks to Jill Turton.
Since moving from London in 2011, the former global brand manager and selftaught cook Kiki Burton has been running the Cardamom & Dill Supper Club, first at the Schoolhouse Gallery in York and then at Spark, York’s street-food enterprise run from a collection of shipping containers.
She went on to cook her vibrant Mediterranean-inspired suppers from cafés that were under-used in the evenings while advancing plans for a permanent restaurant. Last December, planning restrictions led her to walk away from the restaurant idea, something for which she is now thankful.
Kiki spent the first few weeks of lockdown reflecting on how she might continue cooking before launching her Supper Club with a three-course collection or delivery meal every Friday. It’s been a sell-out hit.
She also created Nourish York, a list of independent restaurants and food suppliers operating under lockdown, a resource on her website that she updates daily.
“It’s opened my eyes to the individuals who produce food in our neighbourhood. These people have worked so hard to keep us fed and have constantly adapted to market forces. I really admire them for all that. They will be the winners in the long run.”
What’s the first dish you ever cooked? Moussaka. My Mum had a collection of Cordon Bleu recipe books, they were rather stuffy but they were the beginning of my culinary journey, literally and metaphorically.
Who is your culinary inspiration? As a cook specialising in Mediterranean cuisine, I’m fascinated by Elizabeth David. Jamie Oliver was an inspiration when he first appeared on TV. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi are together a shining light in my life for writing about Middle Eastern food in a way that I recognise. I’m fascinated by Alice Waters of
Chez Panisse in San Francisco. I love one of her prodigies, Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Finally, I super admire Flo Clifford of Partisan restaurant in York, for her deep love of nature and the land, her limitless curiosity and passion for ingredients. My biggest inspiration though is travelling. That’s been the hardest aspect of lockdown. The prospect of no travel for some time makes me incredibly sad.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party? Everyone I’ve mentioned earlier: Elizabeth David, Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Samin Nosrat, Jamie Oliver and Flo for challenging our ideas and preconceptions. It would be a pretty lively affair so I would put Julia Child at the head of the table to call order when necessary.
What’s your guilty pleasure? I don’t feel guilty about taking pleasure in eating though I do feel a little guilty about ordering a bottle of Retsina at lunchtime when in Greece, but not for long.
What ingredient could you not manage without? Big bright lemons, a good quality extra-virgin olive oil, Cornish sea salt flakes and Aleppo pepper. They are, in equal measure, the building
blocks of all my recipes.
What have you been doing during this enforced break? A former guest asked if I could cook for her family of six, that led me to kick-start Supper Club. It’s completely taken off and I am fully booked for the foreseeable future.
What do you think is the future for restaurants? None of us know how restaurants will fare from now on. I think it will be some time before they begin to reopen and perhaps an even longer time before people feel confident enough to go out. I rather love doing what I’m doing right now and I intend to continue in this way until the market tells me otherwise.
www.cardamomanddill.com