Nathan Outlaw’s guide to
PHOTOGRAPHS GARETH MORGANS FOOD STYLING LOTTIE COVELL STYLING OLIVIA WARDLE INTERVIEW FIONA BECKETT
MEET THE CHEF
Nathan was born in Kent but has been living and cooking in Cornwall for years, where he has a mini-empire of restaurants. His flagship is the two Michelin-starred Restaurant Nathan Outlaw in Port Isaac. He also has more casual places to eat in Rock and Port Isaac – and an outpost at the Capital Hotel in London. It’s a business to rival that of his mentor Rick Stein. He’s written two cookbooks on fish, with a third, Everyday Seafood, out next month.
Nathan Outlaw, all 6ft 5in of him, sits behind his plate of fish beaming. The food stylist beams, the photographer beams, we all beam. Nathan’s known as one of the nicest chefs in the business and his grin is infectious. He’s like a real-life Captain Birds Eye.
Nathan only uses fish caught by small day boats
Hearing his soft burr you’d think he was a Cornishman, but he was born in Kent and restaurants are in his blood. His dad was a chef and Nathan started working for him at 14 (he’s still only 38). He left school at 16, went to catering college and did time with some of London’s top chefs before moving to Cornwall to work with Rick Stein in Padstow.
It was there he met his wife Rachel, a local girl. They set up a restaurant together, where he was awarded a Michelin star at the tender age of 25, and two Michelin stars when he moved it to the St Enodoc hotel in nearby Rock seven years later. Port Isaac became the couple’s permanent base in late 2014. “A fish restaurant has to be some place where there is a fishing community. I moved to secure my family’s future. It’s just me and my wife – no investors or anything,” he says proudly.
“I taste all the fish raw when it comes in at the back door before I decide what I’m going to do with it”
Unusually, the restaurant has a no-choice menu based entirely on seafood. Why limit himself in that way? Turns out he has an almost geeky love of fish – the look, the preparation, the satisfaction of working with local produce… “I love meat and vegetables but they don’t challenge me like seafood. Prepping fish is therapeutic. It’s a craft skill but a dying one. And I do it very fast!” Cue the boyish grin again.
“You’ve got to know your fish,” he says. “We only buy off small day-boats that fish sustainably. I talk to the fishermen and take advantage of the best of what’s available. For example, March is good for brill, turbot and lemon sole. I taste all the fish raw when it comes in at the back door before I decide what I’m going to do with it. In Cornwall we get 30 varieties of fish that are good enough to go on the menu.”
Nathan produces surprisingly delicate, elegant-looking plates and it turns out he has an artistic bent. “Art has always been an interest. I was forever drawing when I was a kid and it was one of my possible career options at school.”
Considering he’s achieved almost everything he wanted to achieve well before he’s reached 40, does he have any unfulfilled ambitions? He thinks for a minute. “I’d like to go back and learn about animation. I’ve always loved the Disney cartoons… Old Mickey Mouse, Looney Tunes…” Watch out for the Nathan Outlaw Cartoon Channel in 20 years’ time. →
NATHAN’S GUIDE TO BUYING SUSTAINABLY CAUGHT FISH
⚫ If you don’t have a local fishmonger, you can buy fresher fish online than you’ll find in most supermarkets – try wingofstmawes.co.uk or fishfor thought.co.uk.
⚫ If your fishmonger can’t tell you where your fish was caught they’re not a good person to buy from.
⚫ Look out for fish from day boats certified by the Responsible Fishing Scheme (seafish.org/rfs).
⚫ Go for fish identified as sustainable by the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide (cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org.uk) or that carry the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label. Download the app at goodfishguide.org.
Squid, fennel and chorizo salad with orange oil
SERVES 4. HANDS-ON TIME 20 MIN, PLUS OVERNIGHT INFUSING
“This makes more orange oil than you need, but it’s great drizzled over all sorts of salads or stirred into homemade mayonnaise for shellfish.”
FOOD TEAM’S TIPS