Ready Steady Go!

With a new restaurant opening at Royal Albert Dock and his debut in a revamped TV favourite hitting our screens, March looks set to be quite a month for Liverpool-born chef, Ellis Barrie.

Interview by Lawrence Saunders

How did you become a chef?

When I was about 12 or 13, I enrolled on a Saturday cookery course at Roby Community College. I’d always loved cooking. At secondary school, the only work experience option cooking-wise, was the canteen. So I banged out a load of CVs to places like the Marriott Hotel, the Malmaison, the Radisson and The London Carriage Works.

A lot of them didn’t take on youngsters for work experience but Chris Marshall at the Radisson said ‘come on, get in the kitchen’. It was before a lot of these hotels had franchise restaurants and the Radisson had two AA Rosettes. So every Thursday and Friday evening I’d jump on the train into town and go and work in there.

I just loved it. I loved the banter in the kitchen. It was more ‘me’ than any subject at school.

How did ‘The Marram Grass’ (award-winning Anglesey restaurant) come about?

I was in Australia and my brother, Liam, had just finished university when my dad bought what became the White Lodge Caravan Park – it was a run-down garden centre when we took over.

There was a little tea room attached to it serving builder’s brews and £2 brekkies. I kicked my mum out of the kitchen and with my grandad, started cooking breakfasts. We moved away from everything being deep-fried and starting using fresh stuff. It was a massively slow process though.

We started getting a massive reputation for our breakfasts – we’d sometimes have 60 or 70 people in and ‘The Marram Grass’ is small. Whilst it was still a café we introduced a better lunch offering including things like burgers and fish and chips – all fresh again. Our reputation enhanced again, so we thought ‘let’s do some supper clubs’, and they kicked off.

Not having a fixed menu has trained us well. We’d run out a certain dish and have to come up with another one quickly. Sometimes it didn’t work and customers wouldn’t come back, but we’d learn from that and we weren’t big enough for it to make an impact [on the restaurant].

Why did you decide the time was right to come back to Liverpool to launch Lerpwl, your second restaurant?

I love this city. I was born and bred here and it just feels right. On the back of the ‘Great British Menu’ we built up a good following and a lot of people in Liverpool were saying on social media ‘we’d love you to open here’.

[Me and Liam] were saying we need to do something because for six months of the year ‘The Marram Grass’ is quiet and you do haemorrhage money. We needed to grow the business.

It’s a hell of learning curve opening something new rather than evolving something like we’ve done at ‘The Marram Grass’. It’s taken two years to get to this point [with Lerpwl] and that’s wound me up. I wanted this to be a quick process but I think now I’m more content with what we’re going to put on the menu.

When we first announced it I was thinking taster menus and all that, but now the food is going to be quite simple. It’s not pretentious, it’s accessible. You can come in and spend £3 on an oyster or have a lovely turbot for two with a nice glass of wine for £75.

[Since Lerpwl] was announced I’ve had two years to get better again and it’s given me a lot of confidence. My food has got better. In that period I’ve done the ‘Greatest British Menu’ twice and learnt from all those chefs.

What can we expect from Lerpwl? Will it be the same food as The Marram Grass?

No. We’ve always said we don’t want to do doppelgänger restaurants – it’s boring. You can’t walk into a shed on Anglesey and have a meal and then walk into a restaurant at the Albert Dock and feel the same sort of vibe. Each place has its own personality. You’re not going to get a dish here which you get on a taster menu at the Marram.

Do you feel more pressure cooking on TV than you do working in the kitchen?

Yes! I started watching the ‘Great British Menu’ when I was 15. Every chef I’ve wanted to emulate has taken part in that show. I didn’t apply to be on it. They rang Liam up and he told me ‘oh, by the way, you’re doing Great British Menu!’.

At that point, the cameras were scaring me, as well as the idea of competing against top chefs and knowing that all the other chefs in the country would be watching what I was doing.

It was the first TV experience I’d had where you’ve got one camera on you at all times. The day is mad. You’re trying to remember your dishes, act to the camera and getting upset when your dish hasn’t done as well as you wanted it to do.

It’s full-on. They pick you up at 5 am and it’s straight to the studio – mic’d up, do all your questions and answers and then the clock starts – you’ve got an hour and half to do your starter.

How faithful is the new series of ‘Ready Steady Cook’ to the original premise?

There are no plastic bags anymore! It’s tote bags. But the concept is the same. [The chefs] don’t have any clue what’s in the bag until the contestant tips it out.

Whereas on the original show it was all about food you could get from the supermarket, we’re working with stuff from farm shops now. In the 10 years [the show] hasn’t been on, food has changed.

I don’t meet the contestants and I don’t see what’s in the bag [before filming]. I was hoping I’d be given a chance to look but you don’t have a clue! But I think it’s great, and it works well for me because it’s exactly the same way we used to do the menus on the chalkboard [at The Marram Grass]. Cross one off, bang, do a new dish. I really enjoy it and I think it makes the show so much better.

What I also think is really good is that the budgets are honest and varied. Instead of it just being £10 bags, now you’ve got a £3.50 bag, a £7 bag, a £10 bag and a £15 bag.

People who tune in can go away and cook a meal in 20 minutes because it’s filmed in 20 minutes. You’ve got to do that food in 20 minutes and that 20 minutes is going on TV.

It was such good fun. It wasn’t like the ‘Great British Menu’ where I went to compete, this is me presenting as a chef. The whole team was banging – the five chefs plus Rylan [Clark-Neal]. It was a really good atmosphere from start to finish. I’m hoping that positive vibe comes across.