Interview - Chef Grace Berrow
Words and photography by Grace Berrow.
As children, my sisters and I were lucky enough to have a Mama who did everything possible to fill our tummies with natural nourishing food. Memories of meal times at home are rich with the smell of roasting chicken and pots of bubbling ragu. We ate everything and food was a daily celebration, meals were a time of coming together and communing. In a house with 2 self-employed parents, meal times marked a moment when we were all home and not working and being together consciously.
As an adult I have run with my mothers gauntlet and continued to seek out wholesome nutritious food wherever I am in the world. As soon as I land in a new place I immediately dive into the food culture and almost subconsciously seek our the most authentic nutritious food I can find to sustain myself. The food I eat now as an adult is far more plant-based than my diet as a child. I have had moments where I struggled with different food groups so have had to find a balance that keeps me feeling as best I can whilst not missing out on the culinary goodies this world has to offer.
I spent my whole childhood watching my mother cook and was an avid eater from as early as I can remember, though it was not till my late 20's that I had my first job in a kitchen. I had worked in design for many years in London and realised that my lifestyle was only bearable because I could go home at the end of the day and cook! So I left London and moved home to West Dorset and spent the summer cooking in the sweet cafe in our village. They had an enormous vegetable garden which I walked through on the way to work each day and decided, based on what was springing from the soil, what I would cook that day.
I then did a stage at Spring working for Skye Gyngell, which turned into a permanent job thanks to her amazing generosity of spirit and faith hiring and untrained enthusiast...I will be forever grateful to her. Spring was really my launch pad and after a year I left to work as a private chef for an actress. This was a markedly different way of working but was so full of travel and new experiences that I was flying. Cooking for one person every day is a very intimate relationship and one that I took very seriously. I was nourishing her based on what I knew my body was calling for on any given day and time of year.
When I left that job there was very little time before we opened our restaurant Patiki on the beach in the Port of Soller in Mallorca. What a wild ride that has been....so full of colour and characters,. It was a blank canvas on which I was able to freely express myself through food, which was incredible for me. Running a restaurant is like being the head of a circus, its a joyous, chaotic all-consuming free fall that - after 4 years - it was time to step away from and bring my energy back to myself….to the practice of cooking consciously without the pressure of time and the emotional burden of being the chief team leader / Mama to your staff.
Last year had a very peaceful winter and was looking towards this coming season thinking I would have a slow Summer, spotted with work here and there but the fates had other plans and I spent the Summer running the kitchen at the new Hotel Corazon in the hills above Soller which was wildly exciting and not at all what I had foreseen.
I eat very much like an old peasant woman ( kind of how I like to see myself). What I crave and cook depends on the weather and Season. I guess you could say it is intuitive seasonal eating although that sounds very pretentious...really I eat according to what my body is craving. In winter I live on stews and soups, husks of bread and an every revolving library of cheese that seems to occupy our fridge. In Summer I turn to fruits and vegetables, pickles and fresh cheese. I rarely eat meat or fish but when I feel it every few weeks, its a joy! Im easily pleased food wise, as long as the raw ingredients have flavour and are cooked / swimming in good olive oil and sea salt, Im happy.
I think every body, male or female is so very unique and each one requires their own special set of ingredients when it comes to food. As a woman in my mid thirties I feel for the first time in my life I am having to quite consciously choose foods and food habits to nurture my body. My hormones seem to be increasingly governing my body and I am but its servant running around trying to feed myself whatever feels best / most nurturing / most digestible at any given time in my cycle. I do believe that food cooked with love and care and eaten with love and care is deeply healing and becoming increasingly important for me. It may be too much of a generalisation but I have noticed that the men in my life need food more to fuel their bodies and keep them on the road where my girlfriends are increasingly needing to put love and thought into what food they eat and how they eat in order to keep themselves feeling centred and nourished.
Im always looking out for the gnarliest vegetables I can find and produce from small scale producers of cheese, milk, honey, olives, anything the island can grow or harvest. As much as possible I eat organic and local vegetables, I feel they without doubt have better flavour and as a generalisation they hold more minerals and nutrients than what you can pick up in a supermarket.
During spring and summer I really turn to the BBQ. I love the flavour and smell of charred vegetables and the sizzle of lamb chops or sea-bass filets all dripping in a punchy salsa verde. We have calcots here in the spring, which are a mix between a leek and a spring onion, traditionally charred on the BBQ, then swaddled in newspaper before you strip the black exterior and dip them in Romesco sauce. They seem to be the essence of spring eating to me… communal cooking and ceremonial guzzling of all that is springing from the soil at this most fertile time. Everything is tender and sweet, baby carrots and peas, spring lamb and new potatoes, just a little acidity in the form of anchovies, capers or olives and glass of cold white wine is all I'm feeling these days....
