Michelin man (From Living Northeast)

Michelin man

12:42pm Monday 29th March 2010 in

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Celebrity chef Kenny Atkinson is the creative genius behind the new restaurant at Rockliffe Hall. He talks to Ruth Addicott about his meteoric rise to fame and what it really took to be awarded two Michelin stars.

AFTER a two-week stint doing work experience at The Chester Grosvenor, Kenny Atkinson asked the head chef Simon Radley, for some advice. “I said, ‘what have I got to do to be where you are now?’,”

Kenny recalls. “He said, ‘get your backside down to London, take as much criticism as you can and be like a sponge – soak everything up.”

Encouraged, Kenny took the hint and gave it his best crack. He achieved two Michelin stars, cooked for everyone from Prince Charles to Kevin Keegan, and now has his name above the restaurant at luxury new five-star hotel Rockliffe Hall.

Considering he left school at 16 with six GCSEs and survives on two hours sleep a night, it’s no small feat.

Born in Newcastle, Kenny shot to fame in 2009, when his salad of Aberdeen Angus beef was named best starter in the TV series Great British Menu.

He fell into cooking by chance when his uncle offered him a job at a hotel in Gateshead. Shortly after, he sliced his hand in half chopping a cabbage, but even 16 stitches wasn’t enough to faze him. He got such a buzz being in the kitchen, he decided to pursue a career as a chef.

Over the next few years, he worked his way up through the kitchens, including The Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Hotel in London. He did 14-hour shifts, slaving away from 6am to 1am, while celebs such as Bryan Adams, Jude Law and Robbie Williams, cleaned their plates out front.

Behind the scenes, however, the heat was on.

“I saw guys slice off their fingers chopping herbs and someone else spill boiling hot stock on their feet,” he says. “Another guy put a steak and kidney pie in the microwave, he pulled it out and it exploded all over his face. We called him the Elephant Man for two weeks.”

At one point, Kenny worked 17 hours non-stop, even going to work with a sprained ankle (he sat on a chair and picked spinach). Anything, rather than miss a shift.

While he admits he was “a bit of a kiss-arse” during his salad days (no pun intended), his dedication paid off. He learnt stamina and discipline – the key skills that set him on the road for success.

Kenny gained his first Michelin star in 2008, as head chef at Tean Restaurant, in the Scilly Isles. Within six months of moving back up north to be executive head chef at Seaham Hall in County Durham, he’d earned his second. He is now hoping to prove his worth at Rockliffe Hall.

Straight talking with a dry sense of humour, there is no sign of the F-word. He’s not prone to temper tantrums like Gordon Ramsay, and throwing a T-towel, he says, “is just poncey”.

“I try not to swear but you can get your point across a bit quicker with the odd F-word sometimes,” he says. “There are moments you have got to give people a kick up the backside, but I couldn’t do it without them. Treating them as individuals is the only way to get people to stay.”

The thing most likely to wind him up is when a chef shows disrespect for the ingredients. If a loin of lamb is overcooked, it goes straight in the bin, so you’ve literally killed an animal for no reason, he points out.

But even Kenny isn’t immune to the occasional mistake.

His most monumental gaffe to date was during a private dining at a duke’s house. “I had all the food lined up and the head chef asked if I’d be in charge of the sauce,” he recalls. “I said, I love to. Then just as I was about to start pouring, the screw came off and it spilt all over the first ten plates. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. I didn’t make the same mistake twice.”

GIVEN the pressures of the job, tempers do get frayed, he even recalls one incident, at County Hall in London, where it came to fisticuffs.

“I’d been in since 7am and we were just about to serve lunch,” he says. “I had all my stuff lined up nicely and every sauce clearly labelled. I was well happy. I only turned around for a moment to chop some chives and when I turned back, all my sauces had gone. It was bang on 12 o’clock and I could see the kitchen porter wheeling the trolley down the far end of the kitchen. I raced over to try and stop him but it was too late, he’d thrown the whole lot down the sink.”

About to burst a blood vessel, a scuffle ensued and the head chef had to come down to cool things. “I got a good rollicking for that,” Kenny admits, slightly sheepishly. “I nearly got the sack.”

Although he has come a long way since then, it was a lesson worth learning. He doesn’t condone bad behaviour of any kind in his kitchen now. Teamwork among the eight chefs and two kitchen porters is crucial.

“You only get a Michelin star from having a complete team,”

he observes. “When the pressure is on, the only way you can get through it is by helping each other out.”

Married to Abbie with two sons, Aaron, four, and Aidan, seven months, Kenny doesn’t get as much time to eat out as he used to, but he was “blown away” by The Bay Horse in Hurworth recently.

He is a keen supporter of local produce, sourcing smoked salmon from Craster, honey from Northumberland and cheese from North Yorkshire.

While he enjoyed his time at Seaham, he says it wasn’t going in the direction he wanted to take it. His focus now is on building the reputation of Rockliffe. “I know people who do a nine-to-five and hate it,” he says. “I don’t look at this as a job, it’s a passion.”

Rockliffe Hall, Hurworth, Darlington, County Durham, DL2 2DU Tel: 01325-729999 rockliffehall.com

Kenny's recipe - Roast Sirloin of Grand Reserve Beef, Honey Roasted Parsnips and Wild Mushrooms

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the beef

Four 8oz Grand Reserve beef sirloins

2 sprigs of thyme

1tsp Oleifera rapeseed oil

1 clove garlic

25gm unsalted butter

For the puree

250gm parsnips, peeled and diced into 2cm squares

2 banana shallots, peeled and diced into 2cm squares

70gm unsalted butter

1 clove garlic

300ml water

Salt and ground white pepper

For the garnish

100gm chestnut mushrooms – cut in to quarters

100gm baby onions, peeled

2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 4in batons

1 tbsp WS Robsons Tweedside honey

50gm unsalted butter

100gm Pickering watercress

2 large beetroots

2 sprigs of thyme

100ml Oleifera rapeseed oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Method 1. Wash the beetroot in cold water. Place onto a sheet of tin foil, add the garlic and thyme and wrap the beetroot in foil. Slowly bake in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees for approx two hours until beetroot is cooked. Check this by inserting in small sharp knife to check the centre.

Leave to cool before peeling the beetroot (you might want to wear disposable gloves for this job so that you don’t stain your hands). Then cut the beetroot into neat 2cm cubes, place the dice into a small pan and add the oil and balsamic.

2. In a hot pan add a little oil, season the sirloins and add to the pan. Caramelise on both sides, approx three minutes each side, add the butter, garlic and thyme and baste with the butter. Remove the sirloin and place into a deep plate. Pour over all butter juices, place a sheet of foil over the top and leave to rest in a warm place for five minutes.

3. For the puree, add all the ingredients to the pan, bring to the boil and reduce until parsnips are soft. Add a tablespoon of double cream, bring back to the boil, pour mix into a blender and blend to a smooth puree. Season with salt and ground white pepper.

4. In a pan, add a little oil and slowly pan-fry the onions until golden. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further minute, season.

5. In a pan add a little oil and butter and saute the parsnips until golden. Finish with the honey and season.

6. To finish the dish, spoon a little of the hot parsnip puree on to the plate, drain the sirloin onto a cloth and place next to the puree. On top of the sirloin, arrange two honey-roasted parsnips per person. Warm the beetroot in the pickling oil, then drain and neatly spoon around the steak. Do the same with the onions and mushrooms.

Garnish with a few sprigs of Pickering watercress.