8. Opening Fraiche
When I opened Fraiche, in April 2004, it was difficult to get the produce I needed. I had been working as head chef of the Latymer restaurant at Pennyhill Park hotel in Surrey. I was on the hub of London there, so produce and suppliers were thick and fast. I never had to worry about getting anything. I'd just ring up and it would be there the next day.
My cheeses came twice a week from Rungis in Paris, the biggest wholesale food market in the world. Premier Cheeses would have two hundred of them in the back of the van, all proper cheeses... it was just heaven!
But they don't deliver up here... too far away.
For ten years I used Pascal Beillevaire butter, which for me is the best in the world. If you go to Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in Hospital Road, or the Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, that's what you get and it is fantastic... but Pascal Beillevaire doesn't deliver here either!
Salads were another problem. If I asked for woodruff, verbena, purple basil, bulls blood leaves, or peashoots my suppliers would say, "What d'ya want that for? Nobody else asks for them." It was like Paul Heathcote all over again, a generation later!
Like him, I was coming back to my roots, coming home to my family. I like the Wirral, and Oxton is particularly attractive. In the centre, where Fraiche is, there are quite a few restaurants, cafés and pubs. There's strong community spirit too, with village events, which are good for Oxton... and good for business! But once here, I had to rethink quite a few things on the supply front.
Whenever possible I use local produce, but because we're a French restaurant I have French products too. Cheeses, for instance, come from France and here. We use Mrs Bourne's Cheshire and Bourne's Blue Cheshire and we also use unsalted butter from their family farm, just outside Malpas. I tasted a number of local butters and Mrs Bourne's was the best.
Fresh produce is gaining momentum, and I really look forward to the asparagus season at Claremont Farm here on the Wirral. Their asparagus is great, their courgette flowers too. I like flowers, full stop. I use them in my cooking...nasturtiums, roses, courgette flowers. I use rose extract and the petals too, which I crystallize so you get a crunch from them which is rather nice. I even use dandelion leaves to give salad a bit of a kick, a little like woodruff.