Peter Gordon

Peter Gordon is perhaps New Zealand’s most internationally recognised chef. Born in Wanganui Peter started collecting recipes from the age of four and began cooking not long after. After completing a chef’s apprenticeship in Melbourne in 1985 he travelled throughout South East Asia, India and Nepal for a year before setting up the kitchen at The Sugar Club in Wellington in 1986. Peter moved to London in 1989 and worked at various restaurants until he established his name as executive chef at Mayfair’s Green Street Restaurant then at the Notting Hill and Soho branches of The Sugar Club. Peter opened his current restaurant The Providores and Tapa Room with his partners in August 2001.

www.peter-gordon.net
www.theprovidores.co.uk

Slice of Life

By Peter Gordon - March 2008

Leukaemia and The Queen

What a month March has been. I have fitted so many things into the past 24 days that it’s no wonder I’m exhausted. And, as it often seems when I write my Slice of Life, I’m about to head off to New Zealand in a few hours. My restaurant in Auckland, dine by Peter Gordon, turns three on April 6th, and we’ll be celebrating with a party for our friends and suppliers which should be fun. Head chef Ben Mills has been doing a great job since taking over in December, with sous-chef Nancye Pirini being a brilliant support for him. Our fabulous manager Julie Woodyear-Smith runs the restaurant with a wonderful touch, and we’ve had two really great reviews lately – so all is well.

The month started with our tenth annual ‘Who’s Cooking Dinner?’ leukaemia fundraising dinner on Monday March 3rd. I set up this event to raise funds for leukaemia research in the UK after donating bone marrow to my sister Tracey who was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid leukaemia over 12 years ago. On the night, at The Four Seasons Hotel on Hyde Park Corner, we raised over £400,000. Currently that’s just under one million NZ dollars – pretty good for one dinner! The ‘Dining for a Difference’ dinner we held at SKYCITY in Auckland last June was the first time this format had been taken offshore from London, and both events have really contributed to making a difference.

On the night we ended up with a table of twelve instead of the usual ten. That was tricky enough, but on top of that 6 of them wouldn’t eat meat, and our 2nd and 3rd courses both contained meat. The 3rd and main course was Roast NZ Firstlight Wagyu Rib-eye with bone marrow parmesan sauce, lemon braised chard and almond celeriac skordalia. The bone marrow sauce is a real favourite of mine and we’ve had it on the menu at ‘dine’ for the past few months. Admittedly some people found it rather odd being served at the dinner, but when they ate it they were won over. We managed to feed all of the table, and the chefs we were cooking alongside all enjoyed the Firstlight Rib-eye, which I have to say is a brilliant piece of meat. I often get to butcher it at The Providores and like grilling the trim for breakfast as a treat. Needless to say, my other chefs like the trim as much as I do.

The following week I cooked the most extraordinary lunch I’ve ever done. I’d been asked by Clare De Lore, who is married to Don McKinnon (the Commonwealth Secretary-General), if I would come around and cook a lunch for 4 people at their home. I agreed to it, as Clare is lovely, and then asked who the guests would be as I needed to plan a menu. Clare said it would be The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. After regaining my composure, and swearing to keep it completely secret, I began to plan the lunch. Clare’s brief to me was to give it a Commonwealth feel, but to serve NZ wines.

I have to say I was incredibly nervous cooking for HM and HRH, along with Clare and Don, only four in all, but I was also blown away by how fantastic an opportunity it was to be asked to do it. I often find myself pinching my arm saying ‘And you’re from Wanganui’ but I do think it’s this that often drives what I do. That someone from anywhere, with a bit of luck, hard work, talent and drive, can achieve things. The photo this month is of me as a 4 year old along with my sister Donna, well before I was planning a Royal Menu or a leukaemia fund-raiser!

I fed the Queen, amongst other things; Orkney and Scottish salmon, nasturtium leaves, Welsh Black beef fillet, NZ kumara, celeriac gratin, British cheeses, passionfruit delice and vanilla baked Yorkshire rhubarb. As they left we discussed, funnily enough, the fact that Prince Edward had attended Wanganui Collegiate.

Over the following days I worked on some new menu ideas with Gourmet Burger Kitchen, gave two separate cooking demonstrations to professional and in-training chefs, and another at The Ideal Home Exhibition, did live and pre-recorded radio interviews to promote both NZ lamb, and The International Year of the Potato (a United Nations initiative that came out of Peru) and caught up with Jason Ross from Firstlight who was over in Europe working like crazy.

What I now have to look forward to are the 24 hours I’ll have on a peaceful Air New Zealand jumbo heading off to Auckland via Hong Kong. Great food, brilliant wine selection, time to catch up on the papers, and lots of movies. Sounds like bliss to me!

Cheers, Peter