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 2007

By Peter Gordon - March 2007

I’m sitting in my office at home in West Hampstead and it’s just started raining. Grey skies, leafless trees, but the crocuses and daffodils are in full flower. The winter’s not been too bad they say, but we have had our fair share of snow, closed airports and thick fog over the past months. Last Saturday I returned from New Zealand where I have to say the weather was terrific – admittedly it’s summer there and it seems I lucked onto a good patch of sun and balmy warmth.

A month before I left for New Zealand I was in a town called Glossop, near Manchester, as I was being filmed for an episode of a new BBC3 series which focuses on animals – from the paddock to the plate. The episode I’ll be in looks at sheep. It was fascinating as a group of us were taken through an abattoir (admittedly on the other side of a plate glass screen) and watched the process of slaughtering a lamb. The sheep were raised not far from the abattoir but the audience were from all over the UK – and of course one or two kiwis were there as well. We ate the freshly killed lamb, from it’s heart, kidneys and lungs through to its fillet and rump. Whilst the fresh offal was delicious I think I prefer my prime cuts to have aged a little bit more – they had a texture rather like firm jelly. We were also given some lamb testicles to eat which had been sliced, then crumbed and fried. I’ve had them before but these were better, and they definitely needed the squirt of lemon juice on them. Not for everyone of course, but it seems somewhat less wasteful to eat the whole beast as they do in less developed parts of the world.

Yesterday I was up at 5am - heading to Bedfordshire to give a cooking demo at Greenfield Farm. Constable painted this part of Britain and the vast skies are incredibly inspiring. All I can say is thank god jet-lag gets you up early. The drive from London wasn’t too bad, and it’s always refreshing to see the countryside out of London. That’s what I most miss about New Zealand – the proximity of nature to city. In New Zealand you’re always aware of the beauty of the land, from the extraordinary mountains and young hewn hills through to the pristine rivers and lakes. I grew up near Castlecliff Beach in Wanganui – which is where the longest navigable river in the country (the Whanganui River) rips into the west coast of the North Island with it’s black sand beaches strewn with pumice and trees which have drifted down the river from the Whanganui Valley. Nature seems part of everyday life all over New Zealand, in London it’s obviously beyond the M25 ring-road.

At The Providores we’ve just received our first shipment of Firstlight Wagyu beef. I’ve opted for the sirloin and it’s going on the menu tomorrow. Tune in for next months Slice of Life and I’ll tell you what we did with it.