LOCAL INGREDIENTS, GLOBAL APPETITES

How do you create food rooted in a particular place without becoming constrained by tradition?

British cooking has always absorbed ideas, ingredients and techniques from other places and food traditions. Today, some of its most exciting restaurants combine a renewed commitment to local produce and seasonality with influences drawn from across Europe and beyond. But what does it really mean for food to belong to a place? Is authenticity found in the origin of a recipe, the provenance of its ingredients or the instincts of the person cooking it?

Merlin Labron-Johnson, Margot Henderson and Tim Siadatan have each created restaurants with a distinctive sense of identity: Osip’s intimate relationship with the Somerset landscape; the seasonal, locally rooted country cooking of the Three Horseshoes in Batcombe; and the Italian traditions at the heart of Trullo and Padella. With Joanna Weinberg, they discuss simplicity, sustainability, hospitality and the creative possibilities that emerge when local ingredients meet global appetites.