Few chefs surprise like Robin Gill. When the Dublin-born chef opened his first London restaurant – The Dairy, in 2013 – it was the talk of Clapham, with its beautifully prepared, unorthodox small plates menu served in a disarmingly casual wine bar setting. When the Guardian’s chief restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin visited a few months later, she discovered that “Our meal is a series of small thrills”
But that was only the beginning of a fast-growing empire. The following year Gill and his colleagues opened The Manor, a far swankier restaurant, just a few streets away; it filled up instantly with locals who were already Dairy devotees, but who appreciated the many extras such as a dedicated dessert bar, where you can watch liquid nitrogen being used to freeze ice-cream orders. 2015 brought another Gill landmark, this time in the East End; a restaurant and wine bar called Paradise Garage, serving bold flavours and playfully textured dishes.
Named chef of the year by the Good Food Guide 2016, Gill’s ascent seems unduly rapid, but in reality he was honing his craft at Raymond Blanc’s flagship restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, for years. When M&S came up with the idea of clementine banquets, it sought out young and innovative chefs to collaborate with. “It came down to me and Lee Westcott,” says Gill. “We already knew each other, so we decided to collaborate.”
Gill was excited by the prospect of such an ambitious pop-up in the Orangery in Holland Park. “The building is amazing, and it was decked out with 50 clementine trees like an orchard for the occasion. There was great lighting and music, and a stunning black hand-carved table for all the 50 guests. But we started with a marquee in the garden serving snacks, before people moved properly inside.”
The challenge was to put clementines into every recipe – and M&S, Gill and Westcott came up with the answers. “Lee and I thought there was a danger you could get tired of one citrus flavour,” Gill says, “so we had to vary how we used clementine a lot. My barman from The Manor in Clapham made a cocktail that was a rum Old-Fashioned. These were smoked and then pre-bottled individually; you pour the rum over ice, then stir the liquid with a dissolving clementine lolly that turns it into this amazing citrus and smoky cocktail.”
With canapés and a full tasting menu, varying the dishes took some ingenuity.
“I cured duck ham in the basement at The Dairy, but used clementines and Christmas spices with it to give it a twist. We also did cod smoked over clementine wood and hay, served with and a citrus crème fraîche. Even the bread course used a little clementine curd,” Gill says.
Some of the ideas for the dishes were inspired by Westcott and Gill’s trip to Valencia to meet the clementine growers. “It was amazing seeing the many plantations. Because they’re at different altitudes, the growers are able to pick at one spot, then another spot, so there’s a constant supply of fruit.
“We went into this former monastery in Valencia, now part of a clementine estate, and they had an open log fire burning clementine logs. The smell was amazing. That gave us the idea for the clementine smoke we use in some dishes. Because the flavours and aromas vary –fresh is one thing, barbecued another, the skin is another flavour, the leaf different, then there’s the wood smoke. So you can get herbal or smoky notes too, not just citrus.”
He admits that some of his creations were a bit “out there”. “I’ve always associated autumn with dried leaves and crisps and things like that. So I wanted to do a little play on autumn, with crisps, but like a cornflake or muesli. I made savoury clementine jam with some black pepper, but added savoury notes with crisped kale, cauliflower, cavolo nero, and ‘squash leather’, which is a bit like dried mango – a really good textured ingredient. I wanted to make it like a breakfast dish, like when you’re in a hotel and you have muesli and you pour all these things on. It’s probably one of the most complex dishes I’ve ever made. Even Lee was like ‘I don’t know where you’re going with this dish’, so it was relief when it worked.”
