He very nearly won last year’s BBC MasterChef: The Professionals, and is back in his native Northumberland with a few interesting plans up his sleeve. Rosie McGlade meets the shooting-foraging-gardening-‘artisan preserving’ culinary whirlwind James Burton
There are times when Northumberland chef James Burton feels like an X-Factor contestant. People will stop him in the supermarket in Hexham, ask him to pose for photos with mothers/sisters/brothers. He’s even been asked for his autograph, which makes him laugh.
And James doesn’t laugh a great deal, or even smile, so he says. Those who followed his spectacular progress on TV’s recent MasterChef: The Professionals noted his stern expression as he battled for a place in the finals, only to be pipped at the last post and finish fourth.
It was an incredible achievement in a hotly contested competition renowned for its exacting standards. The great Michel Roux Jr said Burton’s was one of the best crab salads he’d ever tasted. The formidable Monica Galetti said she’d happily put it on the menu at the double Michelin-starred Le Gavroche. The arguably less erudite, though no less exacting Gregg Wallace fell apart several times at the sheer deliciousness of Burton’s food.
Surely he couldn’t help grinning at moments like those? “I think I might have done,” he confesses, “but I’m not a big smiler, especially when I feel I have to. It’s not that I’m not enjoying myself. But there’s no point being the same as everyone else.”
James is different, alright. What you get is what you get; there are no contrived airs and graces and you need to take him as you find.
What sets him apart food-wise, quite possibly from any professional chef in the country, or damned near most of them, is his immense passion for the fascinating ingredients he grows or finds; ingredients he then preserves, dries and concocts. The local supermarket isn’t a place he over-relies on.
Take right now, for example. James has found an old sycamore log into which he is drilling holes. “It’s going to be a stand for the blackcurrant sorbet cones I’m going to be serving tonight,” he explains. The event for which he is preparing is a dinner party for six. They will enjoy the following foraged feast:
• Various fascinating-sounding canapés, like quails’ eggs rolled in four different kinds of dried and powdered wild mushrooms picked by Burton last year (he does lots of this sort of thing).
• Chicken liver parfait (made with garlic, onions, port and brandy mixed to a smooth, buttery consistency), served with aged chutney and Burton’s Moscow rye bread (more sticky than the norm, with that almost lactic, sour cream flavour a good rye should boast).
• Warm yolk (as in egg), jelly ear ‘shrooms (a type of wild, earthy-tasting rubbery mushroom that flourishes at this time of year on the elder trees 20 yards from his home), and sour dough. “In essence, it’s mushrooms on toast,” he says, though probably unlike any most of us have been privileged to taste.
• Scallops cooked with pine needles. Yes, pine needles – you don’t eat them, but picked from young shoots at the top of the tree they lend a gentle, citrusy flavour (who knew?), roe tempura (why waste scallop roe, eh?), and winter green leaves for crunch and colour.
• Beef skirt, bone marrow and potato croquettes (the diners have asked for lots of these), with charred leek and beer gravy.
• Blackcurrant sorbet cornets served from a log and made from a cordial Burton blended last summer from his home-grown berries.
• Chocolate mousse, salted caramel and shortbread; you cut into the shortbread and the runny, salty caramel is a surprise. Warm set custard, jam and meringue, a sort of modern version of Queen of Puddings.
It’s not hard to imagine what Gregg would have to say about that lot.
“I loved doing MasterChef,” James says. “I would do it again at the drop of a hat. I met brilliant young chefs, I got to work with Daniel Clifford [another double Michelin-starred chef] for a service, and I had my food critiqued by some of the country’s top culinary experts.”
Getting his timing right was the biggest pressure. So what was the highlight?
“Actually, it was sitting back and watching it at home, and hearing all the comments. A lot of what they say takes place away from where you’re working, and you don’t get to chat much to the judges outside of the actual filming. It’s all done very properly and very fairly.
“All you really know at the time is whether you’ve got through to the next round or not. But hearing some of the comments has been a boost to the confidence.”
So what now? James’ main bread and butter is his Vallum Cooking catering enterprise (no relation to the nearby Vallum Farm on the Military Road, also home to artisans). He comes to you and cooks at a cost of somewhere between £35 and £50 per head. He stays throughout the courses and introduces the food to your guests. “I think a big part of being a chef is having that immediate relationship with the customer,” he says, which is nice.
His ambition is to open a restaurant, and there have been discussions going on, though he’s not saying what yet. Locally? “Ideally. It takes years of living in an area and becoming intimate with the surroundings to know what grows where, and that’s at the heart of my cooking. But regardless of where I end up, I will make sure I have that close relationship with all my customers. So it would be a smaller place, certainly. For me, food is not just about eating, but enjoying.”
And with James’ food, part of the pleasure lies in understanding all the places and processes behind what’s on your plate. “I’m very old fashioned in many ways and fundamentally, my food is based on simple ideas. I like to make food that makes me smile, and appeals to people because they recognise what’s at the heart of it. I grew up loving the countryside
more than cooking, really, and that’s kind of become my cooking.”
A Michelin star wouldn’t go amiss either, one day, he says, and with his drive and flair, he’s surely in with as good a chance as anyone. Let’s hope he opens that restaurant soon.
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