Paul Foster: “We don’t need to be doing peppercorn sauce and chips”

Tell us about GrassFed

It came about a bit backwards – the restaurant opportunity arrived before the concept. I’ve always been a massive lover of meat, and beef in particular, and have always wanted to open a restaurant with strong sourcing values. We’re going to serve great quality meat cooked over coal, with only two to three components per plate. It will have a really buzzy atmosphere in a really cool setting and Camden’s the perfect place for that.

It's a restaurant that takes sustainability and regenerative farming seriously…

Yes. I wanted somewhere that would represent the best quality farming and produce. Red meat has a bad name at the moment, but I wanted it to be a contrast to the current vegan argument, which is a kind of a craze at the moment that a lot of people are jumping on without actually knowing much about it. Beef is a hell of a lot healthier and better for the environment than people think if you use the right farm and the right beef. It’s not the cow, it’s the how.

What is it going to be like?

It’s a small site but it’s a concept that suits a small operation. It will have 50 covers including 12 seats outdoor overlooking the canal and a very small kitchen - we’re in an archway so there are a lot of challenges with storage space, so we have to be clever with the menu and not be too ambitious. We’re not operating as a fine dining restaurant; we want to turn covers.

What’s on the menu?

We will have somewhere between seven and nine small plates or starters so people can come in and have four or five of those or one and then go onto a main course. Dishes will be things such as beef tartare with mushrooms and beef fat mayonnaise, cured fish, great bread and butter, seasonal vegetables cooked over coals. For mains we’ll have three to four different cuts of Irish grass-fed beef, a sharing one on there that could be a cote de beouf and then some at a more approachable price point, such as a bavette or an onglet, and a rump cap or a sirloin. And then market fish cooked over coal. I’ve worked with [butcher] Aubrey Allen to design a bespoke 100% beef hot dog. It will have truffle mayo, pickled onions, crispy onions and is slightly indulgent but not crazy. There are not going to be any desserts on the menu. It’s a bit of a risk but it’s down to our space and we really want to focus on what we do best.

But it’s not a steakhouse…

We’re kind of moving away from that traditional steakhouse format, which I love but there’s enough of those in London. We don’t need to be doing peppercorn sauce and chips but beef fat potatoes and Jersey Royals when in season and different kinds of sauces – there might be a green herb ketchup, bone marrow gravy, or anchovy mayonnaise - things people know and work but are not too mainstream. There will be an option to add things such as Stichelton cheese grilled on the beef at the last minute or some sobrasada from The Cotswolds. I don’t want it to be too high end, but people can add things if they want to.

Will vegans be catered for?

We’re not going to be shutting down on vegans, we don’t want to be seen as ignorant. There’s a place for them in the market – we don’t want to lose a table of four because one is a vegetarian or vegan. In winter we might serve celeriac blackened over coal and sliced carpaccio.

Why is the beef from Ireland?

Irish grass-fed beef is some of the best around. We are working with the farmers and Board Bia to get the best sourced produce available. I have worked with [butcher] Aubrey Allen for 23 years and use a lot of Irish beef through them, so I want to source through a supplier I know and trust.

Will you be doing any animal butchery?

It’s something we want to do but with our size it’s very difficult. With large hindquarters of the cow there is a huge amount of offcuts that we don’t have the storage space for, but we will be getting in things like whole rump on the bone, trimming off maybe the tri cap or pincanha and putting than on the Sunday lunch menu. We’ll also do seam boning and putting different muscles on the menus. Rather than just order in steaks we will be getting in whole sirloins and ribs and breaking those down and making the best of them.

You opened Salt in Stratford-Upon-Avon six years ago. How has it changed?

We’ve made it smaller. We’ve not taken one penny out of the restaurant but have always reinvested. It’s crazy thinking back what it was six years ago, a tiny restaurant with terrible pine furniture and a terrible kitchen with a gas stove that was falling apart. In 2019 we built a cookery school upstairs that we now operate as a chef’s table and last year we refurbished the restaurant downstairs and put in a new kitchen so it’s a completely different place now.

How does it feel to be coming to London?

I’ve never worked in London but I’m an opening a restaurant there. But I don’t see that as an issue. Things like that I always try and take as a positive. I know London well, I visit it a lot and I’ve staged there when younger but if I had only ever worked in London, I’d know the market, but I might be conditioned to it. Instead, I’m coming in with a different approach. It’s the same as with Stratford. We came in a did something completely different because I’d never worked there before either. The easy thing to do would have been pre theatre menus and fill it with tourists but we did the opposite of that. If I had been ingrained in what Stratford was then I potentially wouldn’t have taken that risk.

How will London differ to Stratford-Upon-Avon?

We will have to be more flexible in London in terms of what we offer - within reason. In Stratford we stand alone as the only Michelin star restaurant in the area so in some respects we are spoilt, and we can do what we want and people will come to us. In London there is so much competition and a much fickler market so we can’t just be stubborn do what we want to do.

GrassFed officially opens to the public on 8 August.​​
https://www.grassfedrestaurant.co.uk/​​​