life | style
Robert Thompson
The Return of
His departure shocked the Island. Now our most acclaimed chef is back, and for the first time in a place of his own, Thompsons, he talks to Roz Whistance.
He wanted to pull out all the stops, to make changes that would take his food and the restaurant to a new level. His boss, though, had different ideas. So he quit, bought a catering van and took off, making paninis on the move.
This isn’t what happened when Robert Thompson left his position at The Hambrough Hotel: it is the plot of last year’s acclaimed film Chef. However, just as the actions of the character in the movie shocked his family, friends and food critics, Robert Thompson’s disappearance shook the whole island. The only man on the Isle of Wight whose food had been awarded a Michelin star, he left the hotel/restaurant in which he had made his name, resurfaced elsewhere only to leave again. And he really did think of jacking it all in and hitting the road in a mobile catering van:
“I went to an H Van dealer to check them out,” he smiles. “But no, the restaurant world is still for me!”
What he did buy was a former sandwich bar looking across traffic lights to the bright lights of Morrisons supermarket in Newport: a surprising location for the erstwhile chef of both the rarified Hambrough of Ventnor and the boutique Pond, and then of the prestigious George Hotel of Yarmouth. However, put your head round the sturdy grey/blue door of
Thompsons, and you’ll see that Robert has created an ideal environment.
A bevy of chefs, gleaming in their whites, are working round a state-of-the-art range. The kitchen is open to the gaze of the customers, drawing them into the theatre of high-end cuisine.
“I could have bought a Mercedes for what the range cost me,” says Robert, “but it had to be done. I put absolutely everything I had into it.” He adds: “People can come and sit and watch the kitchen, or if they want a quieter table they can come upstairs,” and he leads the way to an intimate yet chic space above. The polished wooden floor gives a timeless, established quality, accentuated by shallow shelved alcoves that were unearthed by Robert’s plasterboard-destroying crowbar. The lighting throughout is a masterpiece of no nonsense elegance; oversized bare bulbs form a contemporary chandelier on the stairs and sturdily industrial wall lamps with fine bulb filaments: reminiscent of candles without the twee connotations.
To chat, we sit by the bar, constructed by Robert himself from old railway sleepers which have been tamed and tidied. A log burner is ready to do its welcoming thing as the cold evenings kick in and a window seat, made from a storm-felled tree in
‘The kitchen is open to the gaze of the customers, drawing them into the theatre of high-end cuisine’
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