Caines reaction
Michael Caines Restaurants Ltd took over the running of the food and beverage operation at Exeter's Royal Clarence, owned by Regal, in mid-October. This entails providing the food for the restaurant - which will be relaunched next year as Michael Caines at the Royal Clarence with a new menu - a Champagne bar (planned), pub,café-bar, banqueting and room service.
Caines plans that the restaurant's new design will incorporate modern textures and fibres in a way that is sympathetic to the architecture of the hotel, which is a listed building. He intends that both the food presentation and the dining experience should be "a little bit more relaxed" than at Gidleigh Park. "I'll be able to do a lot of antipasti and Italian-style food," he anticipates.
He is not worried about the sharp fall in Regal's profits for the first six months of trading in 1998 (Caterer, 2 September). "It is restructuring and part of that process is to get serious food into the hotels that the company is retaining, that's whyit has got me on board," he says.
If the Royal Clarence venture is successful, Caines's company may well take over food and beverage operations in other Regal properties.
The last year of the century has turned out to be a significant one for Michael Caines, bookended as it is by two important events in his career. January saw Gidleigh Park's head chef and co-director gain an elusive second Michelin star for his cooking at the Devon hotel's restaurant. Then, in mid-October, he took over the running of the food and beverage operation at Exeter's Royal Clarence hotel.
It is the latter event that is exciting him most at the moment. It not only gives Caines a chance to launch himself as a businessman but will enable him, once a planned £400,000 refurbishment of the Clarence's restaurant takes place early next year, to introduce his cooking style to a wider audience. "I've set up my own business to run the Clarence operation on a profit-share basis with Regal [Hotel Group] which owns the hotel - and, no, I'm not going to tell you the percentage," he states, firmly.
Caines does not intend to cook at the Clarence, although he will be the driving force behind the operation and plans to draw up the menu for the restaurant when it relaunches in March as the 80-seat Michael Caines at the Royal Clarence. Instead, he has installed his junior sous chef from Gidleigh, Jean-Marc Zanetti, as the hotel's head chef. "I get the best of both worlds: a great opportunity to earn lots of money if the venture is successful, while being free to pursue my career as a top chef at Gidleigh," he admits freely.
Make no mistake, being a top chef is important to Caines. He has devoted most of his career to working in two- and three-Michelin-starred restaurants in the UK and France (Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons with Raymond Blanc, La Côte d'Or with Bernard Loiseau, and at Joâl Robuchon's eponymous restaurants). He is fully aware that the opportunity coming his way now is off the back of success at Gidleigh over the past five years.
That success, though, has been gained at a price. Rushing back to Gidleigh one night, barely two months after taking up the post at the hotel in June 1994 (it was his first head chef post and he was anxious to prove his worth), Caines was involved in a horrific car accident. It nearly claimed his life and did, indeed, claim his right arm.
The brush with death, while it did not lessen his desire to reach the top of the top of the culinary tree, did cause him to examine how he prioritised his life.
"All I thought about before and after my accident was proving myself as a chef. And that, basically, meant Michelin stars. My goal when I came to Gidleigh was to get two Michelin stars, and it was still my goal after the accident. But the accident focused me in a different way. It taught me that there is more to life than just cooking.
" I don't want to turn around, at the age of 60, a sad and lonely person, having dedicated myself to cooking at the stove just to be an icon for other chefs.
"Some people would give an arm and a leg to be where I am now. Well, I've given an arm and it's not worth it - I'm not going to give a leg as well. I want to go sailing around the world. I want to go skiing and clubbing. I want a normal life," he states calmly, but with understandable feeling.
Integral to gaining a lifestyle not dominated by work to the exclusion of all else is financial independence - and Caines undoubtedly hopes that his venture at the Clarence will provide him with this. But it would be unfair to say that he views the project as a totally financial one. He remains, above all, an extremely talented chef whose passion for food is at the root of everything he does. That passion shines through in the food he cooks for the privileged few at Gidleigh Park, and he intends it to reflect in the food that will be served under his own name in Exeter.
The hallmark of his dishes is an emphasis on flavour and texture - the former achieved through clever seasoning and the use of top-quality produce. Not for Caines the over-high platform of food in the middle of the plate or the competition of six or seven disparate flavours bursting on to the palate.
Experience and classical training have meant he values balance and apparent simplicity in a dish - the use, say, of two main elements to produce a central intensity of flavour, accompanied by, perhaps, a couple of complementary flavours in the garnishes (though, they may be presented in four different ways to produce a variety of textures).
"I want people to enjoy my food without having to worry about how they're going to eat it. I want it to seem effortless," says Caines. However, apparent ease can often mask a multitude of preparation and cooking techniques, but then that is the mark of a genuinely creative cook.
Nowhere is this clearer than in a venison dish currently on the Gidleigh Park menu. It comprises saddle of venison served with braised pork belly and lettuce, roast figs and chestnut purée.
Two main elements - the greater one being the seasonal venison, the lesser being the pork - are either marinated for a long time or cooked with similar herbs and spices (juniper berries, peppercorns and garlic) to link the two meats without destroying their individual tastes.
The pungency of the spices is counterbalanced by the sweetness of figs prepared in galette form, while venison bones are utilised to intensify the flavour of a sauce, itself derived from the marinade. Straightforward? In taste maybe, in preparation, definitely not.
The dish is also indicative of other elements important in Caines's cooking: using seasonal produce for one thing, and a championing of small, local suppliers rearing meat in traditional ways. "If you can influence the way animals are reared and the way they are cured and hung before the meat gets to you, you'll get a far finer product," he maintains.
First for flavour
The venison he uses is young roe deer - "It's not as strongly flavoured as red deer" - from a supplier in Hatherleigh, a few miles down the road, who hangs the meant for four weeks in its fur before delivery. Caines then strings it up at Gidleigh for a further seven days. "Hanging in the fur stops the flesh from drying out, and four weeks hanging before I get it gives it an excellent tenderness and flavour," he asserts.
Serving the venison with chestnut purée adds yet another seasonal element and contrasting texture to dish, as well as a further Caines signature: a rekindling of "the lost flavours of childhood".
This preoccupation also surfaces in many of the desserts on Gidleigh's menu, including a rice pudding topped with strawberries and served with vanilla ice-cream and a palate-cleansing basil coulis; and a pistachio parfait and hot chocolate mousse accompanied by pistachio and chocolate anglaises. After all, what are these but imaginative takes on school meal staples?
The desserts spring from Caines's imagination, even though he has never specialised in pastry. "When I got the job at Gidleigh I thought, ‘bloody hell, I'm going to be a head chef now, I'd better learn a few more skills,' so I began to teach myself. And although I never had the opportunity to work in pastry [prior to Gidleigh], I used to observe what the pastry chef was doing when I had an afternoon off," he confesses.
In fact, his determination to fill the gaps in his culinary knowledge led him to do a three-week stage in a French bakery in Saulieu, Burgundy, which supplies Bernard Loiseau's La Côte D'Or restaurant. That action is indicative of the steely resolve for perfection that lurks beneath the quiet exterior that Caines shows to the world; a resolve that enabled him to rebuild his life and career after his accident, despite being written off by many doubters within the industry at the time.
The same resolve will probably ensure that his commercial venture at the Royal Clarence is financially and professionally rewarding. "I know I've got what it takes to be successful. It's not how popular you are with journalists; it's not how many articles you get in Caterer; or how many times your name is mentioned in the broadsheets or tabloids. It's a question of getting your head down and working." n
