We head into the kitchen and speak to pie master Calum Franklin and Executive Chef at CUT at 45 Park Lane, Elliott Grover to discuss pies and pudding.
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00:00I mean, it's got to be one of the most exciting collaborations this year in London for sure.
00:04Callum Franklin obviously isn't in London at the moment, and I asked him to come here.
00:11I was sort of unsure that he would because obviously he opened a public house in Paris,
00:16and we've been good friends for a long time now from our Caprice Holdings days.
00:19And he said yeah, he'd love to come over, work with Wolfgang, myself, and yeah, created
00:25some of the most unbelievable, iconic British pies, which are Callum Franklin.
00:31So in 2014, I opened a restaurant called Holborn Dining Room at the Rosewood Hotel.
00:39And there, in 2018, I opened another kitchen attached to the restaurant called the Pie
00:46Room.
00:47That building was 120 years old, and in the basement, it'd been lots of different things
00:53over the years.
00:55And one day, I found a pie tin called a corset mold, which is a corset mold, so it looks
01:00like a lady's corset, right?
01:02Three pieces with keys, and I knew what it was, but I didn't know the technique for making
01:08it.
01:09So I took it to my sous chef, very experienced guy, and I said, David, have you ever used
01:14one of these before?
01:15And he said, I don't know how to use it.
01:16So I asked the rest of my kitchen, which is about 35 chefs, has anyone ever done this?
01:22And no one had ever done it.
01:23So for me, I was like, man, this is part of British food history that we are forgetting
01:30as a kitchen.
01:31So just for us, I want to learn it, right?
01:35So we started this little journey.
01:37Then I realized, actually, if we kind of like, if I can train my whole brigade to do these
01:43things, they'll go off and they'll train other people in the future.
01:48So it's maintaining part of our food culture that's potentially being forgotten.
01:53And really, that's where pie making all began for me.
01:59There's so much I love about it, and it's very hard for me to describe it until you
02:03see it.
02:04Honestly, the beef wellington I saw yesterday, I got emotional.
02:07I mean, you look at the detail of this pie, it's this beautiful layers of potato cooked
02:13in cream, rosemary, garlic, loads of cheese, caramelized onions, and then it's a piece
02:20of art.
02:21I mean, and then you've got the Austrian apple strudel with marzipan ice cream.
02:27Just unreal.
02:28Jelly and ice cream.
02:29I mean, when I heard it, I was like, jelly and ice cream, really, 45 part lane?
02:34And yeah, it's just, it's like an ice cream sandwich, a small bit of jelly inside the
02:39ice cream, which is a nice little surprise.
02:41And then you've got this beautiful dome of jelly on top with a little bit of gold leaf
02:46and some beautiful British raspberries.
02:47It's sensational.
02:48To get your space now, so it's going until this Saturday, the 21st of September, so get
02:54booking.