INSPIRED MENU FOR OUR RESTAURANT

I just love simple peasant food the stuff we grew up on as a poor family, living off what the land had to offer.  The French do this style of food so well, what’s available at the time and flavour over style every time.
Sometimes only a couple of things on your plate with a lump of crusty bread is all you need. A great sausage a couple of boiled potatoes, mustard, bread and a glass of vino is just heaven to me.  There are so many similarities to the style of food we ate as a child and now serve in the Tartine Lounge to the lovely bouchons of Lyon or Paris.
Rabbit was a staple whether it be in pies or a leg or saddle on your plate with boiled potatoes salad or veg from the garden. In those days I felt deprived in some way as my school friends were getting a completely different diet to me. I could skin and butcher a rabbit at the age of 10 kill, pluck and gut chickens. It was second nature. Cooking a rabbit is much more difficult. It can be dry and stringy if you’re not careful but done right it’s a beautiful thing.
We ate rabbit, pigeon, pheasant and fish from the river which was just at the back of our house dad would make the loveliest fish cakes from pike. We ate it because it was cheap and readily available and healthy.
When I go to France its like eating back at home, Fergus Hendersons St John in London reminds me of home too. Of course there are differences frogs Legs, escargot, rich deep sauces we didn’t eat but the style is very similar.
You don’t see it as much here in the UK as such a lot of top-class chefs have turned peasant food into fine dining skyrocketing cheap cuts of meat. I think a lot try to tell that story but have never really lived that life.
That style of cooking is engraved in my DNA the menu at Tartine Lounge is snapshot of that. BOOK A TABLE HERE