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My passion for cooking and ingredients began at a very young age. My parents were not particularly well off, so if we wanted to eat good food, we had to grow it. We grew seasonal plants and had chickens who laid the most amazing eggs; beautiful produce was always part of my life.
Seeing how hard my parents worked to put delicious food on the table was probably the greatest education I could have ever had. They gave me my work ethic for sure, and my love and respect for ingredients.
My career started at the age of sixteen, when I met a chef called Gary Rhodes. He was doing a cooking demonstration in my home city of Cambridge, England, so I hung out backstage and asked him for a job.
He gave me the number for his kitchen and I called up every month for five months, at the same time, on the same day, to ask if I could work for him. Eventually, they invited me down to London to do one day's work in their kitchen. I found it so exhilarating. For a young person to be in that situation, it was so exciting.
I worked for Gary in the city for a couple of years and I once heard him saying: "All the best chefs work for the Roux family." Cheekily, when he gave me a day off for my birthday, I went down to their restaurant, Le Gavroche, knocked on the door, and asked Michel Roux Jr. for a day's trial in his kitchen.
Back then, top chefs required you to write a letter asking to work in their kitchen, before you got a job. He said to me: "I do remember you wrote to me a while ago." I said: "Yes chef"—but I definitely hadn't.
Forging a career as a top chef
I worked for the Roux family for a few years. They were super sweet and very supportive. Eventually, to further my career, they sent me to Paris to work in a Michelin star restaurant, which turned vegetarian shortly after I arrived. It was incredible.
When I came home, chef Michel recommended me for a little job cooking for twelve people a night in a castle on the West Coast of Scotland. The local produce was incredible and because the area was so rural, I did all of my networking at the pub, which was great fun.
While working this job I had some time on my hands, so I applied for Gordon Ramsay's scholarship program, which I subsequently won. As a result of that opportunity I was able to get placements at some of the best restaurants in the world at the time, including The French Laundry in Napa Valley and wd~50 in New York
After returning to London, Gordon asked me to take on the role of head chef at one of his restaurants in the city with Marcus Wareing, which we took from one star to two Michelin stars. Off the back of that success, I launched my own restaurant in Kensington, where I spent many years.
By this stage, my wife was pregnant with our third child, so we decided to take a sabbatical in Sweden, where she was born. We remained there for almost two years and during that time I really reconnected with my passion for cooking.
Working with local produce in the Caribbean
I had slightly fallen out of love with what I call "cookie cutter cooking", where everyone uses the same suppliers and ingredients. I somewhat struggled to see how I could fit back into the city, so when I was randomly offered a job cooking on the private Caribbean island Mustique, I thought it was a wonderful opportunity.
We moved to Mustique, where I really created my philosophy around food. When I first arrived they said: "What do you want in your containers?" I said: "What?" They explained they shipped in ingredients twice a month from places like Milan and I was horrified. People were flying across the Atlantic ocean from Europe or coming from the United States to visit—I wanted to give them a taste of where they were.
I went down to the markets and eventually developed relationships with fishermen and locals, who grew their own produce on the island. Everything on the menu was created with amazing local ingredients from the area.
After three years in Mustique, it was time to come home. So, we returned to Cambridge, where I oversaw the refurbishment and part demolition of the hotel which houses my new restaurant.
The huge issue of food waste
One day, I was interviewing a supplier who said I could have chicken legs for free. In my eyes, that cut is one of the most flavorsome parts of the animal, so I couldn't understand why he would just give it away. He explained that because the demand for chicken breast was so high, the leg was surplus to requirement. I was so shocked.
I relayed this story to a friend of mine and we started talking about what we could do to highlight the issue of food waste. From there, part of our interview process for suppliers became us asking: "Would you be happy to donate produce which cannot be sold over the weekend once a month?" They all said yes and our charity event, Rubbish Cooks, was born.
Creating four course meals from trash
Every last Monday of the month, we take produce that cannot be sold, for example dented tins, fish heads, chicken legs, overripe cheese, yogurt or misshapen vegetables. It arrives at around 2pm in the afternoon and we have the most amazing creative sessions where the team says: "Right, what can we do with these ingredients."
Last month we received bruised figs and overripe tomatoes, which they created the most incredible fig tart with tomato ripple cream. It was unbelievable, we never would have thought of that recipe before.
Fish heads are completely unglamorous in our culture, but in others they are considered a real delicacy. I believe they can taste sensational. So with scraps from the fishmongers, we tend to take the cheeks out of the face and make a stew out of them with tomato, onion, celery, fennel and garlic. The flavors are sensational and it's a dish that can be eaten all year round.
The restaurant caters for around 30 people and usually provides four or five courses. Guests have no idea what will be served. Once we had such an excess of fennel that it featured on the menu three times, but that's the fun of the event.
We charge a fee of £30 ($36) per person, but feel it's important to highlight all the costs involved with preparing the evening, so we lay out the price of everything; from the waiter to the chef and the electricity to heat the restaurant. Then, we level that all out over the month and what is left goes to Jimmy's Night Shelter, a homeless charity in Cambridge. Normally £9-12 ($11-$14) from each £30 ($36) cover charge goes directly to the organization.
How to cook with unwanted produce at home
In the summer of 2022, I started posting some of our recipes on TikTok and the reaction has been incredible. While I don't pretend it's easy to always cook from scratch, I want to let people know there are these amazing little things you can do to help save a bit of money, help the environment by reducing food waste and make your life a little bit more delicious.
There's loads of fun and easy ways to use ingredients you would normally throw away. For example, you can use coffee grounds as fertilizer for plants. If you choose to do so I would always recommend using it for plants which thrive in acidic soil, like citrus fruits or avocados.
However you can also use them to make a delicious coffee liqueur. You have to make sure the grounds are still wet and then combine equal quantities of the grounds and sugar, before leaving them overnight, so it forms a sort of goop. In the morning, add a dash of water and some vodka to the mixture. It makes the most amazing liqueur.
Candied citrus peels are great. All you have to do is boil the peels twice, with cold water to boiling water, then cook them in simple syrup—equal parts sugar and water— for 45 minutes. Leave them for a day to dry and then roll them in granulated sugar or dip them in chocolate. They make fantastic Christmas presents.
Another popular recipe is stale bread brownies, which are made of a mixture of stale bread, sugar, cocoa powder, an egg and any sort of milk all blended together and baked in the oven.
In my view, there's a lot which needs to be done to address food waste. I believe we need to be mindful of where our food comes from and the fact that almost one third of global food produce is wasted, with more than 900 million tonnes of food thrown away every year.
I think reducing food waste is as much a frame of mind as it is action, both of which I am super passionate about. It just blows my mind how much is wasted and while I'm just one guy with a charity and a TikTok account, I like to think I'm trying my best.
Tristan Welch is Chef Director at Parker's Tavern in Cambridge, England. He has launched a monthly pop-up called 'Rubbish Cooks' where guests dine on a menu of ingredients usually considered waste. You can visit their website here.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
As told to Newsweek editor, Monica Greep.
