Advance to Mayfair
Wearing a slightly dazed expression, Chris Oakes, the unassuming and quietly spoken executive chef of the newly refurbished Stafford hotel in Mayfair, relaxes in the hotel's understated comfort.
Questioned about his achievements - and they are many - his characteristic response is to shrug his shoulders and smile. He's not sure how he achieved his first Michelin star, seems genuinely puzzled about the success he made running his own business for the past nine years, (his restaurant Oakes, in Stroud, Gloucester), and can't quite believe he heads the food operation at an 80-bedroom, de luxe four-star London hotel. Yet behind his smile there lies an air of gentle determination.
Oakes may be self-effacing, but the dishes he is serving have a clear sense of direction and purpose. The Thwaite brewing family has invested more than £5m refurbishing the Stafford, including the kitchen. And, although not spoken out loud, Oakes is here to earn them a Michelin star.
His cooking embodies the taste of a luxury hotel: sauces rather than a dribble of olive oil; garnishes replacing those plates of organised chaos we have come to expect from bistros and cafés. The Stafford aims for a 65/35 business/leisure ratio of guests. Its target market is North America: customers expect finesse.
What is refreshing about Oakes's cooking is the lack of prettiness. Flavours are robust, textures firm, colours bold. It is food you want to eat. And he is not afraid to serve interesting ingredients. Sautéd soft roes on horseradish toast with cream and chive sauce is a superb combination. The melting roes are given oomph by the toast, the sauce is restrained but lends exactly the right taste of luxury.
This dish has its origins at home. Fried roes were Sunday's tea, which followed the traditional Sunday lunch. "Dad was a publican," Oakes explains. "Sunday lunch expanded according to what the regulars were up to. Cooking for 16 people was not uncommon," he recalls.
The Stafford may be a four-star hotel, but bubble and squeak is offered on the lunchtime menu, partnered by a breast of chicken and rich onion gravy (£19.50 for two courses). Another typical dish is grey mullet coated in pesto, served on fried tomato with a creamy garlic dressing. The dinner menu is an altogether more opulent affair, but there are still several down-to-earth dishes on offer: home-made pork sausage; broth of John Dory; and spicy tomato sauce with roast cod.
Questioned about the difference between being an owner and an employee, Oakes begins by reflecting on the freedom he had deciding the food and style of cooking at his former restaurant. "It wasn't actually that easy. I was catering for a particular market, certain things - steak, mushrooms, all the old favourites - were expected to be seen on the menu. Although you can invent different ways of handling and presenting them, being realistic, your hands are tied to some extent." Compromise may be every chef's nightmare, but it is an essential part of the business, "and one you learn very quickly, when you run your own place," he says.
"You're back in the hands of an employer. Compromise has to be there when I work closely with the hotel's executive director, Terry Holmes. He knows what our customers want. In the same way I had to listen to my customers in Stroud, I listen to Mr Holmes," says Oakes.
Kit Chapman's profile of Oakes in the first edition of his book, Great British Chefs (Mitchell Beazley, £12.99) shows how - along with the likes of Alastair Little and Shaun Hill - the chefs featured were cooking food considered innovative today. In Oakes's case: scallops seared on top of a scrubbed stove; duck served with the skin and fat; a punchy apple, orange and sultana chutney to cut the richness of a chicken liver parfait; and a dish of red mullet with braised onion and rosti - Oakes's signature dish since 1983.
In 1986 Drew Smith, then editor of the Good Food Guide, called Oakes "the most controlled of the modern chefs". In a sense his cooking retains this characteristic. By his own admission, Oakes does not like to be too expansive, he worries about straying too far, he seeks structure and definition.
A career in the making
Oakes started at the Castle in Taunton in 1981 under John Hornsby. Two years later, when Hornsby left, he took over as head chef. It was Oakes's launch pad. He admits it was a struggle at first, as London suppliers were shunned in favour of local produce. A redundant RAF station in the Blackdown hills supplied the chickens; vegetables, fruit and herbs came from a nearby Edwardian walled garden; cheese was all produced locally; game came from Exmoor; and fish came from Brixham and Lyme Regis.
It may seem passé today, but in the mid-1980s few chefs were focusing their minds on sourcing quality, home-produced fresh ingredients. It is indicative of Oakes's character that, having successfully found suppliers, he then took the trouble to put their names on the menu, a practice he continued in his Stroud restaurant.
Kit Chapman, proprietor of the Castle, encouraged Oakes to go and work with Pierre Koffmann in 1984. Oakes pleaded with Chapman not to phone him every day, a habit his then boss is apparently famous for. The silence lasted a week. But, when Chapman did call, it was to inform Oakes the Castle had received its first Michelin star. Oakes remembers Koffmann grunting: "If Michelin give you a star, then you deserve it." Oakes celebrated with a cup of tea and a smile of satisfaction.
In 1986 Oakes - by now married to Chapman's former secretary, Caroline Scott - took the plunge and opened the 34-seat Oakes in Stroud. The building was an old school house which the couple transformed by doing most of the work themselves.
Oakes says they had five good years, and four recessionary "not-so-good" years. "I ended up with a star, but the restaurant remained essentially a local place to have dinner or an end-of-week lunch. I thought I'd be working for myself, but actually I swapped a boss for a bank manager."
Yet he has few regrets and clearly feels a sense of achievement. Gloucester was one of the areas worst hit by the recession, he explains - to have survived for nine years and sold the business on is no mean feat. Nevertheless, he seems relieved to have returned to a hotel kitchen environment.
What lessons would he pass on to anyone thinking of setting up on their own? Location is of prime importance, not in the sense of the prime site Forte maxim - but there must be a sizeable proportion of business and leisure people to draw on, Oakes suggests. Financing is a full-time job - rather than something to fit in at the end of the day. "We needed to make £5,000 a week to stand still, which is why the bank manager was really my boss. If I was doing it again I would insist on reducing my exposure to the bank - a smaller place, more out of the way, perhaps. Controlling food costs, staff costs, even maintenance, is relatively easy for anyone with experience. But interest rates are another matter."
Same again
Given his time again, Oakes believes he would probably do things much the same. "We travelled all over the country from Sussex to Yorkshire in our search for a restaurant. Maybe we should have gone for a high street site, but we wanted to live in the country and the building had to be our home as well. Our one mistake was not having sufficient extra cash reserves beyond our projections. We put in everything we had and simply didn't have any more," he says. "It worked at the start, in 1989 we had £250,000 turnover. But it didn't leave enough time to plan for the downturn." London is a stimulating change, and one Oakes seems to be enjoying just as much.
