The Food to Go Podcast: unsurprising insight into ‘cooking royalty’ chef

Like footballers and musicians, chefs tend to be less interesting than the work they do. Ben Tish is no exception. Which means the latest episode of The Food to Go Podcast (online now) is a rather bland listen.

Tish makes a living as a chef, cookbook writer and director of the Cubitt House pub & restaurant group. He is, claims fawning host Freddy Clode, “cooking royalty” and looks “great in white”.

Tish’s culinary inspiration is Sicily. “I’ve always liked Mediterranean food,” he says, before being a touch condescending about the likes of timballo (“faintly ridiculous”) and pasta alla norma (“a bit naff if it’s not done well”).

He continues to grate when giving only qualified praise to his favourite place in London for Italian food. It’s Hammersmith’s River Café – which for Tish, an east London resident, is “the other side of the world”.

It’s only when discussing his childhood in Skegness that Tish briefly engages. His Jewish grandma would whip up chicken broth, pickled fish and, remarkably, raw bacon.

Then there’s a lot of dry talk about starting in London’s restaurant business in the 1990s. It was really hard work and demanded long hours. Who would have guessed?

Listeners might be genuinely surprised, however, to learn of the bullying at the now defunct L’Oranger, under head chef Marcus Wareing. “He’s a dick,” says Tish, who also slams L’Oranger’s “stupid” chicory & chervil salad. It was, he opines, “a waste of time”.

The same could be said of this episode.