CURRENT HOMETOWN: Edinburgh, Scotland
RESTAURANT THAT MADE HIS NAME: The Kitchin, Edinburgh
SIGNATURE STYLE: Scottish products with French technique
BEST KNOWN FOR: The Michelin star (for The Kitchin) he got at age twenty-nine; TV appearances on the BBC’s MasterChef; his cookbook From Nature to Plate
FRIDGE: Electrolux
Tom Kitchin started his kitchen career at the bottom, cleaning pots at a local pub near where he grew up in the Loch Leven countryside. But he’s been climbing the ladder ever since then, working with legendary chefs in the U.K. and France. Kitchin credits Pierre Koffmann in London with teaching him the foundations of cooking—using seasonal produce and every part of an animal or fish. He also learned the art of butchering and filleting, skills that he is now passionate about passing on to the chefs who work for him.
Although trained in classic French cuisine at Guy Savoy in Paris and Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo, Kitchin has always been guided by Scottish tastes, one reason he chose to return to Edinburgh, where he was born, to start his own restaurant, The Kitchin. “I am fanatical about working with the seasons and only use the best of Scotland’s produce,” he says, which these days includes sea kale and root vegetables.
That’s why cullen skink—the traditional Scottish chowder of smoked haddock, potatoes, and leek that Kitchin first tasted at age twelve and got hooked on—is on the menu at The Scran and Scallie, the pub he owns that is close to his family home, and where he often drops by on weekends with his sons for lunch and a beer.
And while Kitchin still cooks at his namesake restaurant, he stops by his other four restaurants around Edinburgh daily. When he comes home late or has been traveling for work, his favorite meal is a smoked salmon lasagna, made by his wife, Michaela, who is also his business partner and mother of their four sons. The two created Kitchin’s first restaurant together.
His kitchen at home is a gorgeous open space with Nordic-inspired pastel hues and light-colored wood. “It was a poky little area, but we changed it five years ago to connect the dining and kitchen area. Michaela, my wife, is Swedish so she likes the open living,” explains Kitchin. There’s also a wall of back-to-back serious-chef appliances—steam oven, wine fridge, a full-size freezer, and, of course, the refrigerator.
On its shelves are testaments to the couple’s backgrounds: Swedish fish pastes and herrings—lots of them—share space with local meats and Marmite. Even though Kitchin is steadfastly locavore, he does admit, with a chuckle, that some of his shelves hold Swedish specialty goods from Ikea. Plus, he loves the Swedish Christmas traditions and songs followed by schnapps, “although, after all these years I still don’t know all the words to the songs in Swedish!” he says.
- LOCAL EGGS—“These are from a program in which kids buy eggs from farmers and then they sell them door to door.”
- HERRING IN HONEY MUSTARD SAUCE
- SWEDISH JAM
- HP SAUCE, for Sunday breakfast bacon sandwiches
- MARMITE—“I generally eat it on toast.”
- SOFT GOAT CHEESE AND BRITISH STILTON—“The fridge changes as we get towards the weekend, when I’m off. These cheeses are what we might eat on a Sunday night if we are a bit peckish.”
- CHAMPAGNE—“If we have a special occasion coming up, we’ll always make sure we have one chilled and ready!”
- WHITE WINE
- OLIVES
- CAPERS—“I like to add capers to a dish at the last moment or make caper butter.”
- WILD HALIBUT—“I vacuum-pack these at the restaurant and bring them home. I always have takeaway stuff from the restaurant.”
- SMOKED WILD SALMON
- ANCHOVIES—“This is for a dish the Swedes like to do. It’s like a French potato gratin, but with chopped anchovies added in. It’s a very December kind of dish.”
- COLMAN’S ENGLISH MUSTARD—“It’s a lot stronger than a Dijon. It’s great added to a béchamel or on a ham and cheese.”
- PRESERVED LEMONS—“I add the skin to pasta or fish.”
- CHORIZO—“A great ingredient for a midweek meal. I love to mix it with fish or artichokes.”
- HOMEMADE SAUSAGES, from his pub
- ARTICHOKES
- LOCAL HONEY
- LOCAL YOGURT—“We like to have it in the morning, sometimes with cereal or added to porridge. Porridge is a good start to the day even if it sometimes involves a bit of negotiating with the kids.”
- SWEDISH FISH PASTES
- SUPERGLUE
- KETCHUP FOR BARBECUES
- TIN OF SNUS—“That’s Swedish tobacco and it’s like the equivalent of a cheeky cigarette.”
- OYSTERS—“A particular favorite of mine is oysters with steamed sea bass and leeks. It’s a great dish to make for a romantic meal.”
Q & A
What do you cook for your family? We have four boys—Kasper, Axel, Lachlan, and Logan. Fortunately, they eat mostly everything. There are a few moans here and there but that’s just kids for you! Five nights a week, I’m working at The Kitchin so Michaela cooks. The two nights I’m not in the kitchen, I love to cook, and more often than not, it’s a nice Sunday roast, either chicken or beef—the kids love this!
Why Sunday? Sunday is a family day and the Sunday roast works with our schedule. The boys have football matches at nine and ten, and then they have little things to do here and there. Sometimes we go to the pub we own not far from here. We will go have lunch and a beer and meet another family. So come five p.m. we will come back here for the big meal.
So is that Sunday’s roast chicken in your fridge? Yes, it’s from St. Brides. It’s hard in the U.K. to get a proper chicken. It’s important that the kids see the head, its whole format, where it comes from. The birds from St. Brides are a cut above the rest—they’re free to roam around all day in the grass at the family-run farm, and are raised for a lot longer than the average bird, which is reflected in the fantastic flavor.
Where do you do your food shopping? One of my favorite things to do at the weekend is to go to the farmers market in Stockbridge with Michaela and our boys. It offers fantastic fresh produce from around here. We like to work our way around the market and get some great bread, delicious cheese, and cured meats from Peelham Farm, a little family-run farm located close to the Berwickshire coast. Welch Fishmongers, in the Newhaven area of the city, is also a personal favorite if you’re looking for really great fresh seafood.
Do you like most Swedish food? I like all Swedish food aside from this stuff, Kalles. I call it cat food.
Does your wife like Marmite? Marmite, it’s love or hate. I’m on the love side and my wife is on the strawberry jam side. My wife has been converted to brown sauce and that’s a big thing. Something changed with children and pregnancies. Now she is partial to a bacon sandwich now and again.
What foods would you never eat? I don’t particularly hate any food—I’m up for trying anything as long as it’s cooked properly—however, I do try to steer away from processed foods.
Do you have any favorite kitchen utensils? My favorite kitchen utensil has to be the Microplane. I first started to use them when I was working for Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo. That would have been about 2003. I think maybe I’d seen them before, but I’d never seen the range you could have—all the different sizes. The restaurant was right on the border of Italy, and they used to do a lot of risottos. As a young chef, you got all the great jobs. I remember Microplaning blocks and blocks of Parmesan fresh every day for risotto. A really tedious job but the Microplane made it a lot easier!
What is the story with the superglue in your fridge? I don’t know why but we always keep it here—maybe it’s to keep it out of the way from the twins. They get into quite a lot of mischief.
What do you use the HP Sauce for? For our Sunday breakfast. It’s the only day we do a cooked breakfast, although we do have porridge during the week.
Is your freezer well organized? We had things labeled—I don’t know if anyone does that anymore. It has an eclectic mix of everything from special vacuum-packed chicken jus from the restaurant, to pizzas, ice cream, and wild berries, which we use for crumbles—and, of course, backup bread!