Arnaud Stevens – Coming Into His Own

That Stevens should become a chef is unsurprising, given his food-centric childhood. He was ensconced in the world of cuisine from a young age, with a charcuterie-making great uncle and a grandmother who was a private chef at a French château. The half-French, Birmingham born, Devon-raised chef spent his childhood holidays at his family’s second home in the Loire Valley. “In France I was exposed to markets at a young age – and I come from a family that loves to cook” he says. “But cooking at home was a mix of French and English – my mother is French but to cook English food like Lancashire hotpot gives her a bit of a buzz!”

You could make a connection here with Stevens’ own cooking which, whilst rooted in classic French technique, presents itself as thoroughly modern British, centring around pristine British ingredients and flavours. A juicy, tender squab pigeon breast dish comes with a perfectly crispy, yielding miniature confit of the leg, a sweet parsnip purée and earthy, crunchy deep-fried snails. It’s served with smooth, vibrantly green parsley risotto flecked with puffed rice and sourdough croutons.

“The menus are inspired by the seasons and are very British-driven. I’m very proud of the provenance of our ingredients. We use the Lake District for beef, Portland in Dorset for our shellfish – it’s all there. This is honest food on a plate.”

But despite his sincerity, there’s a playfulness to Stevens’ cooking that is already delighting diners in dishes like his mussels with bread soup and crispy pork belly. “It’s a mussel soup with suckling pork belly, but there’s a little quenelle of white chocolate and garlic ganache. There’s no cream, just milk and stock – the white chocolate is acting as the cream – so you have flavours of moules, pork, garlic and chocolate. It all has a reason and it eats very well. People really dig it.”