What do chefs eat for breakfast?


Mat: Black coffee and cigarettes. Depending on how my day’s going, my first meal could be anywhere between 11am or 11pm. I love going out, eating fantastic food, but work comes first. I pick when I get home. It’s awful, but that’s chefs for you.


James: Whatever I can, whenever I can. I don’t like to fill up too much because I like to taste the food I’m cooking. I love tasting food. I love food – and cereal in the morning doesn’t quite hack it! Unless


I put my twist on it!


Gerald: Normally not much, toast, croissant maybe. We chefs, we don’t eat much. We munch between. It’s not good.


Are there any foods you don’t like?


Mat: I have the misfortune of being allergic to crab. I taste it when I cook it, and I suffer. But it’s a small sacrifice.


James: I’m not a fan of olives.


Gerald: Vegetarian! We don’t have this style in France. I learned this when I came to England. It was new for me. For me, if there’s no meat, there’s no point!


Any foods you won’t eat?


Mat: I like trying everything. I always say if you experience it once, at least then you know where you are. I like all styles, all cultures. I’ve cooked mostly in a similar style to here – contemporary British with a Europe twist.


James: I’m up for trying anything and anything. As a kid was fussy about textures but now I’ve tasted things in all sorts of ways. Like beetroot – you can have it roasted, pickled, pureed . . . I hated beetroot before I became a chef.


Gerald: I try everything. I try a lot of things in France.


What does style mean to you? (interpret this question as you will . . . )


Mat: The Bistro is a stylish place, the way the art hangs quirkily suggests you can come here with your friends and family, have a good bottle of wine and great food, that you can relax, have a laugh, If you’re a tourist coming here this is a place that will create memories.


James: My style is unique, and perfection.


Gerald: French. My style of cooking is French – with a twist.


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him making sandwiches for 8 – 9 months, but it gave him the responsibility of running a section. “It was good considering I’d never cooked before,” he says. He also helped out in other roles in the kitchen, remarkably passing his NVQ2 apprenticeship in eight months. “They were doing Michelin-style food. I was taught to that high standard, and I hope to take those standards wherever I go and gradually build on them.”


With such naked ambition it is perhaps not surprising that when a former colleague suggested James try for a place in a top London restaurant, the Island boy was undaunted by the bright lights – or rather the tricky logistics and costly accommodation. “I went for a trial and they accepted me. It was amazing to go from sandwich boy to cooking in a Michelin-starred kitchen.” However, life was far from easy. On top of near- impossible hours and a temperamental motorbike, the sou chef took a dislike to him, making his life a misery. But James is a remarkably tenacious young man: “Many chefs only lasted a couple of months there, it was a hard kitchen. But it was food I loved cooking, so just because someone was giving me a hard time I wasn’t going to let that defeat me. I held out for a year.”


He was back on the Island when the Bistro job was advertised. “I thought it would be just a bit of part time work but when they explained what they were looking for my heart was thumping! I thought: ‘This is my opportunity!’ – and put a menu together. They loved it and took me on.”


May / June 2012 55


James is still reeling. “To go from sandwich boy to comis chef and now Chef – I’m so proud!”


Gerald Fruitier is, as his name suggests, French. He is based mainly at Hillside where the cuisine is “more French: classic recipes with a new touch”. Although he’s lived in Britain for 15 years his French accent is beautifully rich, his language punctuated with Gallic shrugs and shy smiles. “I’ve been at Hillside four and half years now,” he says. “I have worked different restaurants in France, I like to try new things, it’s good. I used to work à la carte, I worked in a coach hotel. I didn’t like it! I worked at Brooks University in Oxford too, before I came on the Island.”


Like the other two his arrival in Ventnor was pretty accidental. “I came here to see my brother-in-law who’d just bought a house, and I stayed. I bought a house and brought my two children and my wife down.” It is, he says, quieter than Oxford. “Here it’s busy in summer


and quiet in winter, so we’ve worked hard to try to bring in new clientele. Before, local people thought we just cooked for the hotel. Now they’re starting to know we cook for everyone.”


He enjoys being at Hillside, where guests pre-order and sit down for dinner at a set time. “I know the numbers everyday that I’m going to cook for, so when I order my meat there is less wastage. My menus change with the season – new lamb, asparagus, for example. So it’s like cooking for a dinner party at home?. “Yes, but with your own personal chef!” Gerald twinkles. And is his food well received? “Oh yes, the guests love it. There are nice comments in the book, and I see them already coming back for the food.”


Appreciation for his food is clearly important to Gerald, but he doesn’t like to emerge from the kitchen to personally receive plaudits. “I rarely go and see the diners – I’m too shy. My talent is on the plates.”


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