For the Love of Food

As he proudly celebrates 40 years in the industry, chef Paul Askew reflects on a remarkable journey which has seen him go from washing pots and peeling spuds at Thornton Hall to running one of Liverpool’s most esteemed eateries.

Words by Lawrence Saunders

You moved to Merseyside at a young age from Sunderland. How did that come about?

My father was a captain in the Merchant Navy and we came to Liverpool when I was four years old as part of his work with the Blue Star Line. The family has moved around quite a bit but we’ve always ended up back on Merseyside. I went to eight different schools and lived in 14 different homes by the time I was 18. We first settled in Prenton, then we moved to London, then back to the Wirral near Raby Mere, then from there to Dubai, then to Singapore and finally back to Bebington! From there I went off to America as a sous-chef and then I came back, and I now live in Bromborough.

Was it whilst travelling with your family that you developed a passion for food?

Yes, without a doubt. At the time, I thought it was the worst thing my parents could be doing to me, because every time I got settled in a school, they’d whisk me off somewhere else. But when I look back, it was the absolute making of me really. I’ll never forget the first time I went to a hawker stall in a place called Newton Circus in Singapore, and had satay cooked on the side of the road. My mum and dad were very hospitable people as well – they were always entertaining. I think that’s where I got the bug [for food] and I’ve never wanted to do anything else.

What was your first job in the industry?

I came back to the UK from Singapore for schooling and took a part-time job at Thornton Hall. It was the nearest hotel to me which had a decent restaurant. At 15 years old I was washing dishes, gutting fish, peeling spuds – anything I was told to do basically. After about a year they wanted me to be a commis chef and were showing me other things. I just fell in love. I fell in love with the atmosphere in the kitchen, but also the fact that we were doing something which gave other people happiness – that’s always been a key thing for me.

Did you train to become a chef on the job or did you attend culinary school?

I trained at Thornton Hall and then the sous chef there asked me to go with him to Pollards Inn and gave me the KP/commis chef job. I stayed in school and finished my A-Levels because my dad absolutely hated the idea of me being a chef. I think [he didn’t want me to become a chef] because when he was at sea, the guys in the galley would be frying eggs and making big pans of curry. I don’t think he understood where I was going with it, but he got there in the end.

In Britain, we tend to think that hospitality or catering is something that you do if you’re no good at everything else. I never thought of it like that. For me, it’s an art form. It’s something that I’ve trained all my life to do and if you do it at the right level, it’s absolutely no less professional than any other trade. I’ve always tried to fight against that [negative image], starting with my own father, but I’m afraid the fight still goes on. It’s incredibly difficult to attract the right people into the industry.

How much of an impact has the pandemic and Brexit had on your ability to bring the right staff in at The Art School?

Massive. We have quite a lot of French, Italian and Spanish people working for us and during the pandemic, they went home to be with their families. While they were away, we changed the locks on the door because Brexit happened, and immigration law changed. That prevented a lot of them from not just coming back, but wanting to come back. I think it sent out a very difficult message.

It is starting to change now slightly. We’ve had to apply for a Home Office licence to be able to bring qualified staff back in because there’s this new immigration law based on need now. [Coming to work in the UK] is very much like going to Australia or America – you have to prove that you’ve got a degree in something. I’m just in the process now of dealing with a pastry chef from the Basque country in northern Spain. She’s finished a degree course, so of course, she qualifies, but it’ll take me two months, and probably about seven or eight grand, to get her over here.

Paul with his son, Harry.

I know the emphasis is on trying to get British people back into work – I get all that. But it goes back to what I said before, it’s the mentality of Brits when it comes to this industry. In general, we want to be the ones sitting in the chairs being looked after, not the ones doing the running around.

The flip side of this is, there is so much opportunity right now for the right people. It’s unbelievable. There’s not one operator that I know, in the whole country, that isn’t recruiting. When I say recruiting, we’re not talking about bottle washers, we’re talking seriously good jobs with seriously good pay.

You were one of the founder directors of The London Carriage Works when it opened in 2003, a restaurant renowned for its fine dining. How much has Liverpool’s food and drink scene changed since then?

It’s a good question. It did feel like we were sort of trailblazers at the time – trying to do something that hadn’t maybe been done in Liverpool. When we first opened, there were probably about half a dozen decent restaurants, but we were still quite far behind the rest of the country in terms of food culture, hospitality culture, service and quality.

We were getting battered by all the southern journalists about our service standards. In some places at the time, it was very sort of ‘cheeky Charlie’, having a bit of a laugh and a joke at the table. I think that’s changed quite dramatically in the city. What you see now is a much more mature dining scene with professionals who understand that it’s about the whole customer experience, not just about knocking out decent food. That’s a given, or it should be in my book.

This September marked the start of your 40th anniversary year in the food and drink industry. What have you got planned to celebrate the milestone?

We’re having a series of special events including winemakers dinners, and visits from guest chefs and sommeliers. They are coming up to Liverpool from all corners of the country to celebrate 40 years of me running around the city trying to make it work! I think it’s a great opportunity for us to bring people here that maybe we wouldn’t have got on other occasions.

You’ve also recently announced plans to open a new restaurant at Duke Street Market called Barnacle. Can you tell us more?

The plan is to tell the food cultural journey of Liverpool through its maritime history. Barnacles are on the bottom of all the boats leaving Liverpool; they are filter feeders and that is how I think of Liverpool. We’ve gone off and learned from every corner of the planet, and we’ve brought that intelligence back to the city. But now we’re saying: ‘Let’s produce dishes that will have influence from around the world, but using our own ingredients from the Liverpool City Region’.

It’s a seasonal menu that will change three or four times a year, and it will always be about using ingredients from within a 30-mile radius. It’s going to be in Duke Street Market where Pilgrim was previously situated.

I’m really excited about it all. I love the fact that I can use my dad’s name to tell the food cultural story of Liverpool. It’s being done with two Harry’s; Harry Marquart, who owns Bone and Block and Kelp within the market, and my son, Harry, who’s going to be the sort of operations manager and director. Harry Marquart used to work for me at the Carriage Works for many years, and he’s also worked for Jason Atherton and people like that. It’s a story which is going to be told by scousers, which is lovely.

theartschoolrestaurant.co.uk / barnacleliverpool.co.uk

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