Suddenly Cook House was actually ready. I had an opening day in the diary and I wasn’t going to be alone anymore – I was going to have customers. I hoped!
I opened just for people I knew on the first day. My parents came, and some friends and neighbours. I prepped everything as planned in the morning and by lunch had big beautiful bowls of colourful salads ready and buttery tarts coming out of the oven.It was quite surreal, but just an extension of what I did at home, so I was pretty comfortable as a trickle of people started to arrive.
There is a little open kitchen as you enter, where I prepare everything for that day’s menu. Customers can choose from the chalkboard hanging on the wall and place their order. They can see me cooking, and chat about which dish is which and ask what I’m doing. There’s a stack of cookery books for people to look through and the little wood burner crackles away. One end of the containers forms a long dining space with small daytime tables. This transforms to a long table for supper clubs, with a hidden store behind. The other end houses our larder full of colourful jars of pickles, vinegars and jams. There are tables wherever they will fit and we put as many as we can outside as soon as it is warm. There are strings of little lights in the two gardens, where we grow herbs and keep the barbecue. They are both peaceful little suntraps in summer.
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I started by only opening Monday to Friday for breakfast and lunch. I was going into the world of hospitality but avoiding weekends, which was perhaps naive, but it worked for me at the beginning. Mentally I could cope with this. There was, after all, only me. I was doing everything: the opening up, ordering, admin, social media, cooking, serving, cleaning, accounts and everything in between. It was what I could manage and looking back it was hard work but a good place to start.
People would observe that I had it easy, a restaurant only open for breakfast and lunch in the week, it sounded like a doddle; but I don’t think they grasped that I was only one person, every single thing that needed doing had to be done by me…
Day two and actual members of the public came! I remember chuckling to myself a bit. I didn’t know these people: how did they know about this strange girl making food in a shipping container? I served a small menu: big seasonal salads that you could have as a side or a main, such as courgette with lemon, mint and feta, a summer panzanella with tomatoes and purple basil, as well as some salt beef, ham hock and pickles, and a dark chocolate and almond cake with raspberries and home-made lemonade. It was really simple, but very tasty at the same time.
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I learnt as I went along. In the beginning I changed the menu almost daily, which in time I realized was stupid, really. The salads, at least, needed to stay the same over the course of a week to make my life manageable, so ordering, prep for dressings and salad toppings didn’t need to be constantly changed. I tried not to waste anything at all so the menu began to take shape around this. Things are either made fresh to order or they are cooked and kept for a few days, such as roast tomatoes and peppers, or pâtés and potted meats. If something spoils after a few hours and has to go in the bin at the end of the day, then it isn’t the right thing for my menu.
Cooking every week in this way has meant I have built up a huge range of recipes and ideas, which are all mostly written down in my little black recipe book. I sometimes remember something, like a tarka dal soup I was making daily for a few weeks last year, say, and then can’t find it written down anywhere, which is frustrating; but the next time I make it, it will just be a variation of a memory, which is just as interesting in its own right.
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I worked on my own for a year, then finally bit the bullet and employed someone and expanded to open on Saturdays too. Caroline had worked in bakeries, organic farms and restaurants and worked with me for a year. It was strange to suddenly have someone else with me in what had become a very personal space, but at the same time I learnt quickly how to delegate. Passing on as much of your knowledge as quickly and clearly as possible is something I think is very important. It allows you time and space to move forward. If everyone in the kitchen knows how to make everything, then you are free from chopping onions and have space to plan menus, meet with people about interesting projects and generally move forward. I know I have done this at a snail’s pace compared to some restaurateurs, but I still think it’s been the right pace for me.
After Caroline left to run her own bakery, Lou started work. On her first day Michel Roux Junior and a full Channel 4 production team came to film – talk about throwing her in at the deep end! We were asked to be part of a lovely series called Hidden Restaurants, where Michel visited twenty or so unusual kitchens around the UK. I filmed all day with Michel, cooking, eating, visiting the city farm to pick vegetables and chatting about food in Newcastle. It aired the following spring and was such a charming programme, full of sunshine, good food and people doing interesting and unusual things around the country.
The day after it aired was insanely busy, with instant queues forming. People had warned us to be prepared, but I hadn’t really believed them so we were caught out somewhat. There was no time off for a while and there was a big shift in the way things ran. I kept waiting for it to die off and it just didn’t–not for at least six months, but even then settling at a much busier level than previously. We called it the ‘Roux effect’, or the ‘Rouge effect’ after a customer who asked,‘What was that chef’s name who came? Rooge? Micheal Rouge?!’
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We have grown our customer base steadily since day one, the television appearance being a much bigger boost than anything else. We have, however, had great national and regional press, magazine features and radio appearances.
I remember our first review very clearly: I was in Cook House alone, checked my phone and saw that someone had tagged me with a link to a Guardian article. It was a review of the best cheap eats in the North, which doesn’t sound very glamorous now, but I remember reading it and sitting down and being utterly over the moon, so incredibly happy. I was very proud that someone outside of the city had chosen to highlight us. It also led to many more reviews and still brings tourists to us today.
Following this I had written my secret list of yearly goals, and on it was to ‘get in the Good Food Guide next year’. I didn’t even know when it came out, but it turned out it was a few weeks later and a local chef sent me a link to an early press release that mentioned Cook House. I can’t tell you how delighted I was, and desperate to get myself a copy. This turned out to not be that easy and saw my parents driving round every branch of Waitrose in the Northeast, until my mum finally got one, and got it for free much to her delight. There it was in print: page 429 – Cook House.
We were in the Lake District and we were just waiting for the lamb to finish cooking in a fire pit in the ground while I flicked through the guide reading what the scores meant and looking at the highlighted restaurants at the front, scanning down the Top 25 Best New Entries, and there we were…Cook House, Newcastle. This is still my best moment, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. How did we make it there? I was so happy, and I also had a leg of lamb just out of the ground to eat.