Nathan Outlaw at the Black Pig

There's an old adage that says you can't put an old head on to young shoulders. Well, I'm here to tell you about a notable exception to the rule: Nathan Outlaw. He's just opened his own restaurant at the tender age of 25, and there's no sign that he's jumped into the venture blindfold.

Here's the lowdown: he threw open the doors of the Black Pig at Rock on the north Camel estuary in Cornwall back in May, and it's done cracking business ever since. But then Outlaw and his business partners - brother-in-law Colin Morris and his partner Nicola Tigwell - never had any doubt that it would be otherwise.

Why? Because not only is Rock directly opposite Padstow, that Mecca for all westward-bound foodies, but also because it has a pool of wealthy permanent and holiday home-owners to draw upon. "It's called ‘Kensington on Sea' - lots of rich yachters and weekenders," says Outlaw with a slow grin. For weekenders read Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet, Earl Spencer and (rumour has it) his right royal nephews. It certainly makes Cornwall's Rock one of the diamond variety.

All of which Outlaw knew, because he's lived and worked in the area before. He was a junior sous chef at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow between 1998 and 2000 and helped Stein's former head chef, Paul Ripley, open his own restaurant, Ripley's - also in Padstow - two years ago. These experiences gave him an excellent knowledge of local suppliers as well as his target market: and this knowledge was reinforced by the fact that his in-laws (Morris's family) are local to north Cornwall.

Top that practical knowledge with a shrewdness in offering a completely different dining experience to his former bosses - non-fish specialist for a start, modern cutting-edge food for another thing - and you can see why Outlaw seems older than the quarter-of-a-century he's racked up in years. "Yeah, I'm young," he acknowledges, "but what people don't remember is I've been cooking for customers since I was 14, so I understand what they want. That's nearly 12 years of experience - I'm almost over the hill!"

Laughter subsiding, he gets serious again. "If the Black Pig was in Padstow, it would be different. They don't really go in for fine dining there. But we've already got an 80% ratio of locals to visitors here, so that'll see us through the slower winter months," he explains. He goes on to confide that the restaurant has already made enough money to see it through its first year. Not bad.

So how has Outlaw achieved this happy state of affairs? It helps that his father is a chef (he's an executive chef with Sodexo). That meant that food was an integral part of life for Outlaw as a child growing up in Kent. He was fed well and he learnt subconsiously about produce. "Dad's always had an allotment, so I've always known about raw produce. And we never had anything from a packet, so I've always known how meat was hung," he says.

Even more vitally, I suspect, his father planted the desire to be his own boss in Outlaw's mind. "Dad never had the opportunity to have his own restaurant and he always said ‘if you get the opportunity, take it,' - so when I had the chance, I went for it," he says.

Not only did he go for it, he went for it at the same time as his family life was entering a new phase. In May, Outlaw and his wife Rachel had their first child, Jacob - another reason to move westwards, so that Rachel could be near her family. Like most babies, Jacob didn't sleep through the night in his first few months, with the result that when the Black Pig opened, Outlaw was running the kitchen on his own on just two or three hours' sleep a night. Not ideal.

More energy

But help arrived at the restaurant in June in the form of 21-year-old chef Michael Hamilton, who joined Outlaw from the Seafood Restaurant, and Jacob's now doing the decent thing and allowing his dad some shuteye after work. More sleep means, of course, that Outlaw has more energy to put into his cooking.

As with all chefs, Outlaw's own cooking style has come out of the melting pot of influences imbibed from the chefs he's worked with over the years - Stein, Ripley, Peter Kromberg and Gary Rhodes in his early days (between 1996 and 1997 he worked with Kromberg at the InterContinental London, Rhodes at City Rhodes), Eric Chavot (at Chavot in Fulham Road in 1997) and John Campbell. But it's to Campbell, with whom he worked first at Lower Slaughter's Lords of the Manor in Gloucestershire from the end of 1999 until autumn 2001 and then at the Vineyard at Stockcross until setting up the Black Pig, that Outlaw perhaps owes the biggest debt, a fact he's more than happy to acknowledge.

"A lot of my meat cookery I learnt from John - the techniques, prepping and all of that - and I really learnt the management side of things while I was with him. How to streamline my cooking, how to finish off, how to mix that with creativity. He used to encourage me to come up with ideas and that's what I'm trying to do with Michael now."

Let's take a look at the Black Pig menu, then. It's sensibly short - always a good sign - with four choices at each level, and seven cheeses on the cheese platter, all from the UK and as local as possible. Stars include a lovely pink, succulent Gressingham duck breast served with the bird's cured leg, a purée of red lentils for the starch element, leeks, spring onions and chicory. Outlaw confits the legs with garlic and orange and a touch of startlingly pink saltpetre to bring out the colour. "They used to make bombs from that didn't they?" he asks rather alarmingly.

Then there's a tasty and seasonal game terrine made with red leg partridge, venison, and braised rabbit which the locals love; and a loin of pork with braised red cabbage, garlic mash, sage and onion and a pork reduction - made, naturally, with organic meat from the local Cornish "black" pig, sourced from a farm in nearby Tregorrick. "They really care for the pigs and only kill one a week - the meat's excellent. I usually just take the loins off them but I took the head last week and did a terrine with it. It's good for Michael to learn how to butcher."

And let's not forget the puds. There are some seriously good ones at the Black Pig, retro with a modern edge for the most part. A chocolate fondant with Earl Grey ice-cream ("John's recipe - there's no point in trying to mess with it, it's the best I've ever tasted"); an elderflower ice-cream with English toffee jelly (served in a martini glass to look knickerbocker gloryesque); and a rice pudding (not at all school dinnerish, more risotto-like) with a surprisingly crunchy plum jelly, a tuile made of plum purée, and a velvety honey ice-cream made with Himalayan honey.

The food reflects his personality, adventurous but not silly. But if you want a few more pointers, the last book he bought was Michel Bras's Essential Cuisine. Before that it was Campbell's Formulas for Flavour (a complimentary copy to thank him for helping Campbell prepare food for the book's photo shoots). His musical tastes run to Foo Fighters, White Stripes, Strokes and - the current kitchen staple - Snoop Dogg.

Being the type of person he is, he's already planning his future, too. More storage space off the kitchen, extending seating capacity - the restaurant has room for 30 at the moment - by enclosing a small terrace at the front of the restaurant, even a Black Pig Caf‚ near Rock's beach. "We're never going to make a fortune from a restaurant this size, so we're going to try and keep an eye open for properties so we can build on the reputation we're hoping to get here," Outlaw explains.

As I said, he's old before his time - in the best way of course.

Outlaw on working at…

City Rhodes

"I went to City Rhodes expecting it to be like the Gary Rhodes on telly - you know, lots of fun. It wasn't. It was a real shock and it knocked the wind out of me. I went there from the InterContinental where you did your eight hours, and had a canteen and all that sort of stuff - I didn't realise restaurants were different. I thought I was hard done by and walked out. It was one of the worst things I ever did. But I learnt a lesson and got back on track afterwards."

Chavot

"Eric gave me my kitchen discipline. I was a slack chef when I joined - wanted to be the next Marco or Gordon and the only way to do that is to get your arse kicked. And that's what happened! I worked side-by-side with Eric for four months and he was on my back all the time. He made me into a more mature chef."

Lords of the Manor/the Vineyard at Stockcross

"John's was the hardest kitchen I worked in - very disciplined but non-violent. I was very lucky when I started at Lords because I got a lot of intense training. John moved me along quickly. He taught me how to mix creativity with managing a kitchen and always encouraged me to come up with ideas."

Black Pig

"The biggest kick I get from having my own restaurant is to see it being successful, and to be creative all the way from the kitchen to the table. Nobody says ‘you can't do that' - I can wake up in the morning and think of a dish and put it straight on the menu. It's a great reward to do that after the hard work to get here."

Recipe