Hello.
Hello.
How are you?
Good.
Can we come in?
Yes, come in.
I was really sporty.
Fourth-best high jumper
in New Zealand for
two years.
I jumped a meter
64 twice.
Everyone thought that was
great, that I was going
places, and then I
discovered punk rock.
And it was all
downhill after that.
Excuse me.
Can I have some plates?
Plates?
Yeah.
I've got it?
Plates?
Yes, chef.
Oui, chef.
Mm.
Oh my God,
they're really good.
She's very feisty.
Have we got enough food,
Emma?
Oh, my God!
We have our arguments.
Hug and kiss and make up.
She's a force of nature.
These fucking, I hate
these squeegee bottles!
Canteen is probably the
best eatery in London.
Food is just better
cooked gently, isn't it?
She's a sort of genius
at hospitality.
If she's at a party,
you know it's
going to be fun.
Goldie Hawn
was screaming,
I want more bone marrow!
She had three portions
of bone marrow.
We love Goldie Hawn.
She she's very good.
She's oomphy.
Could you stop, can you
go away for a minute.
Have we got
many bookings?
Yeah, we're quite busy.
I think we're
almost full.
Shit, man.
The Canteen has
been going for
eight years now.
The first day I think
there was eight people,
and we had two pop
up trestles, and
we had a tablecloth,
and everyone sat at
one table together.
And then we thought, oh,
we, I think we need
to get some tables.
We're getting busy, we
need to get some tables.
And then we realized that
we needed to get
a cash machine,
and then we needed to
get a kitchen porter.
Then it was suddenly
a little bit busy, and
we needed to get
another chef.
And so it sort of
happened like that.
There wasn't
really a plan.
When you come in here,
it's a very unmarked
door from the street, so
unless you know you're
coming in here, it's not
a restaurant that's
attracting passing trade.
So anyway it's a bit
of a club, and
I love that about it.
Sometimes we have
Europeans having a hard
time finding it.
Some people will walk
in after seven years
of looking for it.
Build a field and
they will come,
in the words of
Kevin Costner.
That's what we did,
we built our field.
Okay, we have cauliflower
fritters with coriander
and spices.
If you come
through the door,
you're my guest, really.
It's just I'm gonna cook
the food that I want to
cook for
you to eat today, and
I really hope
you enjoy it.
We are devilling some
crab with monks beard,
and we're also doing,
a curry?
We're doing a curry?
Curry for a tasting.
Oh, we're doing
a tasting,
a wedding tasting, so
we've got quite a few
things going on.
I really can't
be bothered.
Service, please.
One one table seven.
My food,
it's hearty food.
I think it's food that is
quite grounded, that has,
I like to think it
has the land with it.
It's food of the people,
you know?
We like to see a carrot
with dirt on it,
don't we?
Not too much,
but you know.
We want good produce,
happy animals that
lived good lives.
I like it to be always
a little bit messy,
a bit chaotic, not to
follow rules, to try and
keep it in Britain.
I like the food
very much.
I like the sort of plain
Englishness of it.
I like it that it's
food that's not been
passed around
a million times.
You, you don't think
that there's been teams
of slaves working,
fiddling, to put little
bits of things on top of
other bits of things.
I'm just not going to put
gold leaf on anything.
Like little golden,
I won't say,
looks good though.
I like how hokey we are.
Everything in England
is sort of tainted with
sort of, you know,
class status points, and
she's probably just
blithely unaware of that.
And I, and I think
actually by ignoring them
that's the only way to
fight them, you know.
A sort of nourishing
quality that she has,
a sort of straightforward
idea that people
should eat and have fun.
I've enjoyed working with
Anna more than any other
head chef I've worked
with, so, I mean, and
I've worked with
a lot of head chefs.
At The Canteen, a gentle
warmness about it.
It's quite relaxed.
I'm gentle, aren't I?
Yes, you're gentle.
Sensitive.
Sensitive.
She's really open minded.
If I want to
try a new dish.
She'll let me do it.
And then she'll always
come in and eat it.
And then if she likes it,
she'll be really
positive.
And if she doesn't,
she'll say do it again.
It's really uncomplicated
in that way.
It's great, I like
working with women.
She is brilliant, but
if anyone takes her,
it is war.
It is war.
So this is, that was
where, yeah, mum and dad.
Curly hair!
Breast feeding.
The first women I worked
with in New Zealand was,
was two women who ran
a restaurant called Java.
Was the head chef.
And I,
I'd just left school, and
I got a dish washing
job with her, and
then she said, would you
like to start cooking?
And I said, yeah,
I'd love to, and
we made bread.
She did great food.
The menus changed.
She taught me a lot.
I didn't work really much
of hardcore kitchens.
I worked in quite
gentle ones.
You know, people talked
about sex quite a lot.
I think Margot's got a
really distinctive style.
Similar to Fergus but
I think it's more.
I think its a little
bit more feminine.
Service, please.
What's there not to like?
It's all good, all good.
Of course with Margot,
I'm going to be
biased anyway.
We follow
the Fergus Henderson way.
Did I say that?
Well, I'm his
number one fan.
I don't see why I
shouldn't say it.
The first time I met
Fergus was the beginning
of the 90s.
Fergus was working
in a club called 17
Mercer Street in
Covent Garden.
And Margot came upstairs
to see me cook.
And he looked really
nice, and I like,
I may, I just said hello,
and I said, great food.
And I think that was, it
was love at first sight.
He says he fell in love
with me at that moment
which I think is
quite a good line.
We talked about
food nonstop and
what we loved about
restaurants and eating.
I think it was more
about just a passion for
something, so
that something could
grow out of the passion.
Anyway, so we opened The
French House, and, and
it was great.
This is The French House,
Dean Street, Soho.
This was my neighborhood
for a long time,
so it's like sort of
a local's, my local.
Cheers.
Downstairs,
there's this wonderful,
sort of louche pub
jammed with, you know,
permanent alcoholics and
lots of artists, too.
Sometimes, when chefs
emerge from their
kitchens, you're
supposed to bow down and
worship or something, but
with her, it was just,
oh, here's a fun lot of
people, I'll come and
chat to them, you know.
I have walked these
stairs many, many times,
trudging up,
pulling my babies up.
Oh, beautiful old friend.
He used to say that my
babies were my shame.
How is your shame today?
Francis Bacon.
It looks so different,
it's all open.
Of course, it looks,
it feels so much smaller.
Oh, I love this,
these sinks.
See, the sun
would come in,
it's such a nice kitchen.
In the 80s, there was
a very big Italian phase.
And then there were some
older restaurants which
still were for French
cuisine, and one or
two very boring and
very expensive
Japanese restaurants.
But Margot and
Fergus were presenting
much plainer food.
Just things like
peas in their pods,
you know very
simple things.
Things like
cheese on toast.
Very unpretentious and
menus that you
could understand.
Fergus taught me a lot
of traditional British
dishes which I
didn't know about.
I'd cooked
Mediterranean food but
I hadn't cooked British,
that old-school British
food, and so that was
really exciting to learn
about British cooking,
which so needed to be
put on the restaurant cuz
it just wasn't anywhere.
She's taught me
to be organized.
I was chaos.
And she brought, which
is vital in a kitchen,
to be organized.
He, he was sometimes
a bit late.
And she taught
me to duck.
I did smash
a lot of clocks.
I remember throwing
clocks at him a lot.
But we could have quite
a lively discussion.
It's arr, arr.
She turned me
into a chef.
She knocked me into
shape and said,
this is proper cooking.
I mean,
we were madly in love.
It was, it was a really,
a good atmosphere.
And then Fergus left.
He went off and
opened St.
John which was
a bit upsetting.
No.
He left me to have
babies, you see.
That's what happened.
I was quite upset for
about ten years, but
I'm not envious of him.
I'm incredibly proud of
him because I think what
he's done is really
strong, and that book.
I mean I go all over the
world and meet chefs, and
they say they were going
to stop cooking, and they
read his book, and that
gave them the passion and
desire to want to
be a cook again.
Nose to Tail Eating
definitely changed
the world of cooking
at that moment cuz it
allowed us not to chop
everything up into
squares.
As Fergus says, if God
wanted square vegetables,
he might have made them.
Then I had more children,
so
it became more
complicated to work, so
Mel and
I started catering.
Second coolest
gallery in SoHo, and
it's Angus Fairhurst's
show of his animations.
Oh, look, there's
one of his gorillas.
Hi.
Come and say hello.
Hi.
It's a great show.
Yeah.
So beautiful.
Angus said to me that
he'd started to go for
lunch at this place
every day, and
that's how we kind
of met everybody.
We all became very
good friends, and
in addition to that,
we've had quite a lot of
entertaining that
Margot has done for us.
In the art world,
for instance,
you are endlessly
going to dinners,
private views, events
that have a certain sort
of predictability
about them.
And I think before we
were lucky enough to meet
Margot our dinners always
consisted of sea bass
with steamed vegetables
and you know,
that kind of thing.
This party is not,
this is about fashion, so
it's their, their whole
feel and look, and
we're just helping them.
The whole theme's gold.
I think I've got a gold
feel going with it, and
so they employed me,
because I'm ginger.
No.
I'm not
part of the thing.
We're gonna
cook it out of
a tiny little cupboard.
So we, our main thing is
to get the food, to get
lovely food on the table
that's not overcooked and
that's delicious.
Where's the other cake?
Bye Patrick!
Mel and I have been
driving cabs for
about seven years
because of catering.
I mean, when we first
started catering and
we had little kids,
we didn't wanna get a van
that we couldn't put
our children in.
Cuz we needed a, and
it seemed a more of
a glamorous way to
arrive at little jobs.
Oh, no, it's open.
I thought that
was blocked.
You all right?
It's just over here.
She is incredibly
generous and incredibly
good at giving and
precise about doing food,
and she,
she will always, I mean
she's mother nature,
Margot, she really is.
I think we need a whisky,
don't we?
A hot toddy.
There's something quite
splendid about our food.
One, it's really good.
And it has also often got
a lot of sort of theater
and drama to it.
And I think the staff are
very good at what they
do and they know
how we like things.
So, I think it will
go really nicely.
Yum.
You could always have
a glass if you want.
You want a glass of wine?
Margot just sort of makes
you feel like you're in
her zone, you're in
her environment.
She's the hostess,
and everything from
the flowers on the table
to cigarettes in a,
you know, a container on
the bar, to the feeling
that the party doesn't
just finish at 10:30.
It sort of feels like,
you know,
a wonderfully generous
and inclusive event.
It's all down to her.
That is an incredibly
wonderful feeling for
somebody like me, to know
that I can rely on that.
That everybody's going
to go away from that
party feeling like
they were special.
That's what her
parties are like.
Can I have a waiter to
take this upstairs for
me, thanks.
But I think it's more
than just the food
in a way.
I think it's the really
inclusive all round
experience that she's
exceptionally good at.
She's great fun because
her energy levels
are extraordinary.
It's a danger that she
may pop at some point.
She has this wonderful,
wholesome,
sort of milkmaidy look,
which is good.
She's a sort of good
advertisement for
her own food.
You think, if I ate her
food all the time, I
would look like that, and
I would be very happy.
Can we move these
platters please?
We're always so chaotic.
To be an artist is to
care very much about what
you're doing.
And at that point where
what you're doing meets
the outside world,
then it has to be really,
really good.
And you know that.
Or, not everyone
does perhaps but
perhaps they don't know
what really good is but
Margot does.
Margot's standards
are on the plate.
Have you got enough?
That's all the plates.
Smiling out there, girls.
Are they enjoying
themselves?
Okay, we're finished now.
I'm gonna get changed.
I think anybody who's
creative to that extent
as an artist, absolutely.
I mean, I couldn't
do what she does.
I've always been
driven by cash.
No, not that much.
