Jeremy's Lunch with a side of Kindness

Sit. Don't go. My mum would caution as I swallowed my wine like water. She always looked at ease in restaurants, as though she'd grown up dining out. But she didn't. When they dated back in the 70s, my mum and dad would go out to dinner at a time when eating out in London was not a thing and the selection was limited. When never I opened the kitchen drawer, the yellow sweet corn holders from the steakhouse restaurants they visited peak out, a symbol of moments they shared together, and an era that's long gone. My mum grew up in Jamaica eating the seasons. Summers of ripe avocado with salt fish and sweet yam roasted on open wood fires, winters of cow foot soup and gunga peas. She'd climb trees for tangerines, custard apples and jelly mangos, her dessert of choice. Mum's childhood in Jamaica meant that she recognised good food when she tasted it, but she knew it wasn't necessarily found in grand buildings. There was a time in Gambia where mum or range were freshly caught fish to be served on the beach, roasted in foil parcels. We ate with our fingers and watched the sunset with the sand between our toes. And I remember the summer we spent in Turkey when I was 17. When she led us to a village restaurant serving local home cooking, the liver melted in your mouth, and we're tear fresh bread to scoop up the tender green beans and okra cooked in this intense, garlicky tomatoy sauce, slick with olive oil. The family loved how much we adored their cooking. We visited so often they knew exactly what to serve us. I'm Natasha Miller and this is Bittersweet. Stories exploring how food connects us to our deepest memories. Jeremy King opened the wallsley in Mayfair in 2003. I took mum there for her birthday. You could never seduce my mum's pallet with grand spaces. So I knew it wasn't a decor that would impress her. The food and service would have to excel. And they did. And since I've met Jeremy, I now understand why I always thought of the wallsley when I wanted the people I love to feel cared for and celebrated. So here's Jeremy King with a story about unexpected generosity and how one meal over thirty years ago changed his life. We were driving in France near Avignon because a friend in Paris, a daughter of his very good friends who had a simple rustic country restaurant. We're talking about 1986. With great anticipation we drive into the car park and at that moment realise of course it's a Monday and is often the case with restaurants. It's closed. And we get our first view to the left, a brick-built building with smoke coming from it and to the right a converted farmhouse which has tables inside but most of the tables are outside and of course are unoccupied apart from one. So we think well maybe we're a little early or are they actually closed. So we walk up to the table and we introduce ourselves and explain that we'd been recommended by our mutual friend and they say oh you know Jean Bernard, we love him so much. Unfortunately we are closed today but then they look at us and say but why don't you join us? So we join the family on their day off. We're just having a simple lunch they said. We sat down at the end of a wooden table, slid on to a bench. We were sitting there at the end welcomed but in many ways not involved. We were left to get on with ourselves. We were sharing but we weren't family. There was teenagers at the table and people would say what are they doing? Who are they? There was a genuine interest in us. They were a little shy, a little apprehensive, unintrusive but made us feel welcome and I think being made to feel welcome in any situation enhances the experience. So we sit at the table a litre of rosé wine is opened and put before us and outcome the whole selection of terrains with some bread and I think that's great. That suits me, that's my lunch. That's perfect. I start eating. I don't know quite why it was but there was something about the atmosphere. I felt as if I was in a 1970s French film. The Mistral was coming up. The Mistral has this strange effect. He can drive people mad but it was in its embryonic stage and we were fine enough in land that it didn't hit as hard. The leaves are rustling, the wind has come through and this smoke is being blown over to the restaurant and something special about the smoke. Anyway as I eat my wife tells me I think you'll find there'll be more. I did really and at that moment a mammoth platter of stuffed muscles comes out of the kitchen. Now my day off lunch might have been the patties but suddenly I realise of course that they're cooking for themselves and it's their opportunity to really enjoy their food and so the muscles come and then I think wow that was a fantastic lunch but then I realised the smoke had a purpose because the smoke in my it's smelt so special is that they were baking a lamb from the wood fired oven out and in the yard. How was the lamb served? Just with phlagellar beans on a plate. Soon after a salad and with the salad fresh goat's cheese which was straight from its making and at every turn of the way because I had no expectation the enjoyment enhanced. Suddenly everything tasted better, sounded better, smelt better, right through to the coffee which was then put down in front of us. Somehow even though it had that chickery element to it as was common in France at that time it's still tasted wonderful. Can you remember exactly what that first bite of lamb tasted like? I can't remember it as well as everything else. It's strange, that is the least memorable part in a funny way. I can remember that the cheese just almost curred. I can see that the muscles on the tray I think it was the smell of the lamb which impacted on me more than even the taste of it. Every flavour seems special. Even the rosé wine which is a very very simple wine. The rosé wine phenomenon actually quoted to somebody who had fallen in love with somebody else overseas and to come back brought them back to England and suddenly the love disappeared and I said yes this is rosé wine and they said how do you mean? I said because that rosé wine tastes so much better when you have the sun and the wind and the friends and the relaxation it lifts the flavour. If I had that meal recreated in London it wouldn't taste half or smell or feel half as good and then they wouldn't take any money off us. We insisted I think it was five francs eventually we were allowed to pay which was the equivalent of about 50p at the time and the generosity that came out of that whole experience was probably what profoundly affected me through the rest of my life. What were you feeling as you ate that meal? Whistful perhaps wishing I could have experienced this more but how lucky I was. It's strange I do remember thinking from an in-or-specious start this has turned out to be pretty perfect. I've had a lot of very memorable meals most of which I've forgotten. I'm privileged enough that I when I talk about my best meals a question I'm often asked by staff in particular what's the best meal you've ever had. They expect me to talk about the all-white, truffle menu that I had in Roblishon Paris or something like yes it was very good and very expensive but my favourite meal was this meal in France. That's the meal I always return to. What do you think you learned from that meal? Whilst I may not have consciously realised at the time sublimely I learned a lot from the simplicity and I've long held the belief that the best meals aren't necessarily had in the plushest of surroundings all you need in a restaurant is that you're not cold or hot that you feel secure and that can be with a wooden table and a chair. Those are often the best experiences. The conviviality of other people. It's the conviviality of food. I learnt that food is only part of the equation. I think of food as being the catalyst of things to happen. That's just one of the many lessons I got from it but ultimately it was the welcome and the generosity which is a word which I try and carry through all everything I do as a restaurateur, altruism, the idea of doing something for somebody else without expecting any personal gain whatsoever. Nowadays people think hospitality is a more perfunctory thing about asking questions and so on. Actually it's a generosity of spirit and I think that immediately contributed to the overall sensory experience. Has your experience of food over the years changed you? Yes it must have done and I certainly have changed my attitude to food. I was brought up in a home where food was not important. Food was a bit of a nuisance and remember this is at a time when in Britain the number of times people went out to a restaurant. Proper tablecloth restaurant for a meal was well below once a year on average and there was no joy in food when my mother would put everything in a pressure cooker. I remember we caught her trying to put the Christmas lunch in a hostess trolley the night before so I didn't get anything from them. Going back to the meal in France. Why do you think it left a lasting impression on you? Was it because you were tasting things you'd never had before? I tasted all the components before. It was the moment which was special is if I'd taken a drug or something which would enhance the flavour. It was the moment and I'd great belief in that is that the brain takes us into places. The brain is not purely empiric it feels beyond that and I think that's an element of the human existence is that most of it we can't explain. We try to explain but we can't explain because we feel it and that we deny our intuition and instinct too much in the pursuit of factual memory. We particularly British like to disconnect with our emotions it's easier if we keep it over there rather than embrace it. My thanks to Jeremy King. I'm Natasha Miller and this is Bittersweet, a Miller Libertine production. In our next episode I'll be talking to creative director and artist Anna Burns about how a bowl of noodles helps her gain control over her life. I was making choices. I seem crazy to think that a bowl of noodles means that but it really did and I think it was just about being around people that were getting on with their lives. It felt like I was sort of getting on with mine in a way. If you're intrigued by this series and want to find out more visit bittersweetpodcast.com. Follow us on Apple Spotify and your favourite podcast platform.