Former Ritz chef to embark on French terroir and cooking tour

Britt, who was promoted to Chef-de-Partie under John Williams at The Ritz, has been planning the trip for around two years and will spend a year on the road to get an experience of all the seasons as he explores every region visiting producers, farms and chefs.

Terroir

Speaking to BigHospitality, Britt said French cuisine had hugely informed cookery in the UK and how chefs are taught but still had more to offer when it came to seasonality and using the unique terroir of a region to inform producing and cooking.

"Each region, they know what they can do well and they do it well. They know what ingredients they can grow or produce for the terrain that they have, the weather, the climate, the soil. They grow that and chefs cook that and that is what is local and special to them and they don't really care about what somebody else down the road is making," he said.

UK chefs could adopt similar techniques, according to Britt, and more note should be taken of the attitude and passion in France towards growing and creating great ingredients.

The long-term ambition for Britt is to run a restaurant with as much of the produce grown or reared on location or nearby. The trip is designed to help inform that aim and improve the offering for his future customers; however Britt will also be blogging his trip and collecting information to create a reference guide for chefs when he returns.

Career development

Former colleagues at The Ritz have told Britt they think it is a great idea and are looking forward to reading the research and meeting him at various stages on his trip in restaurants he will be visiting.

Britt admits the trip is not a usual stage in career development for chefs and he is taking a risk in making this unusual choice but it is a risk he thinks is worth the potential benefits.

"I am very passionate about the subject that I have chosen: sustainability, having my restaurant, being able to grow everything. I just want to do everything I can to achieve that so if it doesn't go down the standard route that everyone works to Michelin star restaurants in London then I will have to go and do something else. I am happy to take that risk because I know that is going to help me towards my goal in the end," he said.