West Dorset Living Feb - Mar 2020

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"I think when Fishworks failed…well it gives you plenty of time to reflect on what’s really important to you and what’s not" So I made a phone call to my agent who was on the train on the way up. He was mortified! All I could say to everyone was that 'I’m sorry, I just don’t want to do it'. Financially it was suicide as it was a very well paid job but it was prime time television and all the things that go with it and I didn’t want to be known as a guy on telly. I wanted to build my reputation as a restaurateur and a chef which is what I actually really enjoy. I think when Fishworks failed…well it gives you plenty of time to reflect on what’s really important to you and what’s not and allowed me to make my own choices, not get swept along with ‘this is a great idea’. It was a great idea, it was magnificent. The TV show would have been great but it just wasn’t for me. So the answer is I am regularly asked to do television bits and I will 99% of the time turn them down and occasionally I might do the odd thing but I don’t wake up thinking ‘I’d like to do more television’. 18 for, how can we have a really amazing strategy over five years that gives people top pay, freedom, how can we create a development programme so that people can develop in the organisation.’ I tend to think of the restaurants like a community now. Everybody who works for us belongs to the community. We talk a lot about family but of course family are hard to get rid of and communities are made up of people all contributing, so when people don’t contribute they move out of the community and new people move in. One thing I didn’t realise is that you made significant changes to your menu with regards to being gluten-free. That must have been a big change? Yes! About ten years ago we set about rebuilding all of cooking ranges and changing all of our practices so that offer everything gluten-free. We committed to the business being gluten-free, not just by saying ‘here’s a gluten-free menu’. Everything we do is gluten-free. If we have to swap a bun for a gluten-free bun we do, and it basically means that the whole menu is available to somebody with a gluten intolerance rather than them feeling in a minority and only being able to choose from say five things on the menu. Going back, I first met you at the beginning of the century! 2000, a long, long time ago! Since then you’ve appeared on TV, most notably with Matt Dawson, the rugby player, but do you find yourself too busy to make room to do any shows as of late? The television career took off back around 2008/09. The series Mitch and Matt’s Big Fish became very successful and Denham Productions and the BBC wanted to do series two. So there was a lot of euphoria and excitement from Matt and the team, and they were on their way to London to sign the deal. We had agreed it, gone through it all and I started to get cold feet. I was sat in the restaurant having a brandy and a coffee and I was just thinking to myself ‘I don’t actually want to be a television chef, I want to be in this restaurant cooking’. Surely your heart has to be in it if it’s what you are going to do? I think you are either on telly to drive people to your restaurants, well I’ve been there when you are in a restaurant and so many people want to talk to you because they’ve seen you on telly but never for the right reasons, and the thought that somebody comes to the restaurant just to catch a glimpse of the person they’ve seen on telly is just the wrong motivation. I want people to restaurants because they are really great places socially to go and they have importance in the community and they like your food and that it’s somewhere they want to come to celebrate birthdays and all of that stuff! Absolutely, and you’ve done so, I mean The Seahorse is just brilliant I’ve got to be honest. It’s just delightful the minute you walk in there, it’s such a lovely place to be and I absolutely love coming down there and hopefully when the weather brightens up I’ll be back. One last question; are you doing Salcombe Crab Festival this May? I’m still not sure if I’m going to do it this year. I didn’t do it last year, but I did the year before, but I am hoping to do a fish festival in Brixton, a crab festival in Dartmouth which we always do, and also Dartmouth Food Festival in October which is always great. www.mitchtonks.co.uk
ALL'S FAIR Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 forges ahead from 24 February - 8 March in the fight to secure sustainable livelihoods for farmers in the global south. Sadly, the shocking exploitation of the people who grow our food is still rife around the world and Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 will highlight this reality, focusing on women cocoa farmers, who are some of the most marginalised and face the greatest challenges. To raise awareness, we've brought together fabulous recipes showcasing Fairtrade ingredients Okra Stew Images Chris Terry and chef for photography Danny Jack 19
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West Dorset Living Feb - Mar 2020

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