The best ingredients – delivered to your door

Eleven UK chefs share their top supplier secrets

Assaf Granit, chef patron of Coal Office, King’s Cross, London
“I get my fruit and vegetables from Natoora. Spring is the highlight of seasons for me, so I’ll tend to buy Cornish spring greens and salad leaves from Mora Farm, white sprouting broccoli from Worcestershire and forced rhubarb from Yorkshire – the list goes on. The point is to eat seasonally and the season will sustain you in good health.” Download the app for home deliveries, home-delivery.uk.natoora.com; natoora.co.uk 

Richard Corrigan, chef-proprietor of Corrigan’s Mayfair and Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill, Mayfair, London
“I’ve been ordering for many years from butchers Crowe’s Farm in County Tipperary, which also supplies Virginia Park Lodge, our business in Ireland. It is one of the country’s most successful outdoor-reared pork producers, with its own abattoir, butchery and delivery service. As well as the extremely high-quality meat, it’s the family element that really attracts me – John Paul rears their pigs and butcher TJ processes the meat using a special recipe passed down to him by their father. A delivery of its pudding (€4) and smoked back rashers (€4.50) is such a treat for the family – especially for me.” crowefarm.ie

John Williams, executive chef of The Ritz, London
“I’ve been ordering caviar – specifically Beluga (from £50, 10g) – for over 16 years from King’s Fine Food, both personally and for The Ritz. I think it’s the best sold in this country. What makes it so special is the perfect size of the eggs and the creamy, nutty flavour with a slight taste of the sea. I can’t recommend it more highly.” kingsfinefood.co.uk

Lisa Goodwin-Allen, executive chef at Northcote, Lancashire
“Wellocks is our local supplier of regional and seasonal fruit, but it also supplies the hospitality industry. As restaurants were forced to close due to coronavirus, it turned its hand to delivering high-quality, seasonal fruit and vegetable boxes (from £14.95), along with other essential items, to the doorstep, such as dairy boxes with yoghurt, cheddar cheese and milk (£22.50).” wellocksathome.co.uk

Multiple Michelin-starred chef Pierre Koffmann
“I have worked with fish suppliers The Upper Scale for 30 years. When I had my restaurants (La Tante Claire and Koffmann’s at The Berkeley), I would call them every morning and we would discuss what was good to order. We have become friendly over the years and the fish is beautiful – it tastes like it’s just out of the sea. I had a delivery yesterday and we ate tuna steak (from £7.80 each), which I pan-fried with salad. It was delicious.” theupperscale.co.uk

Monica Galetti, chef-proprietor of Mere, Bloomsbury, London
“For fruit, veg, eggs and specialist ingredients I’ve been using First Choice Produce, which is brilliant – the quality is top notch and it’s been really great at getting it to me safely (and with as little contact as possible). I’ve ordered its fresh produce boxes (from £20), and it was kind enough to give me a few extra boxes of supplies to pass on to the local NHS workers, who are doing such a good job for us all. It’s a tough time, but food is one way we can help.” firstchoiceproduce.com

Carlo Scotto, chef patron of Xier, Marylebone, London
“I’m buying vegetables from Turnips, based in Borough Market. The produce is incredibly good and you can order retail, and it will deliver the next day. I feel it’s not only my job but my duty to support local businesses. I also order from HG Walter. Its T-bone (from £15.75) and tomahawk steak (from £35.09, 1.1kg minimum order) is of the highest quality.” HG Walter, hgwalter.com. Turnips, 020-7357 8356; retail@turnipsboroughmarket.co.uk; turnipsboroughmarket.com

Yotam Ottolenghi, chef-owner of six restaurants in London
“I buy the London cure oak-smoked salmon (sliced from £13, whole fillet sliced £72) from east London’s Secret Smokehouse for the wonderful quality,” says Ottolenghi. The smokehouse’s owner Max Bergius has teamed up with Mark McCutcheon, senior sous chef at Wiltons Restaurant, to make fish pies (£10), with 10 per cent of profits going to Hackney’s St Joseph’s Hospice, while NHS workers or first responders will be offered a 50 per cent discount. secretsmokehouse.co.uk

Anthony Demetre, chef-proprietor, Wild Honey St James, London
“I make bread religiously every weekend for the family and I am currently getting the best organic quality flour (the T65 variety) from Fine France. It’s restaurant quality, although it comes in 25kg bags (£25); nothing smaller is available. Still, we eat a lot of it and although bread making is quite time consuming, we’ve all got plenty of time to enjoy it at the moment.” 020-7622 1020; newcoventgardenmarket.com

Jason Atherton of Pollen Street Social and The Betterment, Mayfair, and Adam Handling of Adam Handling Chelsea
“I buy Meat Me at Home’s iberico pork secreto (from £29) because it’s just an ultimate piece of pork,” says Jason Atherton. Chef Adam Handling also calls on the supplier from home. “I love the bavette,” he says. “It’s such a delicious cut, but with it being Wagyu it has enough of the fattiness combined with the texture of a bavette (from £80).” meatmeathome.com

Laura Wiedemann, owner of Pompette, Oxford
‘‘I’m ordering native-bred Tamworth pork from Paddock Farm, reared with great care on its estate in the Warwickshire countryside. It’s consistently an incredibly well-flavoured meat and brilliantly butchered. We order them for Pompette, most often pork chops, one of my favourite things to cook as well as to eat (Tamworth pork taster box, £50).” paddock.fm

Gymkhana reopens in Mayfair

The Michelin-starred Indian restaurant rises from the ashes of a devastating 2019 fire, offering contemporary cuisine by executive chef Jitin Joshi.

On 6 June 2019, the Michelin-starred restaurant Gymkhana was engulfed by fire, devastating the Mayfair property. Now the restaurant – inspired by the elite gymkhana clubs of India, where members socialise, dine, drink and play sport – has risen from the ashes and reopens its doors to diners this week.

Samuel Hosker, design director for JKS Restaurants group, has conjured a luxurious interior mixing British and Indian design references. The ground-floor dining room fuses leather with cane-work seats inspired by Pierre Jeanneret’s classic Chandigarh chairs, while downstairs in the lower-ground-floor restaurant the mood switches to dark and decadent. Here, intimate lighting sets the tone for rich woods and red leather seating under a scarlet panelled ceiling, while original Gymkhana objets – from hunting trophies said to have come from the Maharaja of Jodhpur to lamps from Jaipur – are scattered throughout the spaces.

Executive chef Jitin Joshi heads the kitchen with cuisine highlighting tandoor-oven roasts and seasonal curries. His new à la carte menu includes dishes such as dosa (a type of crispy pancake) with Chettinad duck and coconut chutney (£12.50) and kid-goat methi keema (a spicy curry) served with salli (potato sticks) and pao (a type of bread), priced £13. Meanwhile, the five-course Venison Feast menu (£90; wine pairing is an additional £95) includes delights such as venison boti sula kebab, and there’s a “Hunters” alternative (£90; wine pairing £70) focusing on fare like game-bird baida roti (egg roll) served with gur (a type of cane sugar) and girolle (mushroom) pickle. Those popping in for lunch can expect two- and three-course menus, priced from £27.50.

New cocktails have been created to whet the appetite, including a Peach Blow Fizz (£14), blending green mango with Tanqueray gin, frozen yoghurt, egg white and soda, while the House Martini (£14) is a nod to the original dirty martini with an Indian twist – an olive-brine poppadom.

Chef Tom Booton takes the reins at the revitalised The Grill at The Dorchester

The youngest chef ever to take charge of The Grill at the grand Park Lane hotel conjures a contemporary dining experience.

Chef Tom Booton, only 26 years old, will take the helm at The Grill at The Dorchester when it relaunches on November 12 with a revitalised decor and menu creating a contemporary dining experience. He is the youngest chef ever to take charge at the restaurant.

Tom Booton, 26, is the youngest chef ever to take the reins at the restauran

Booton, the former head chef at Alyn Williams at the Westbury, has created a series of set menus. For lunch, expect dishes of brisket pie, sauce bordelaise and celeriac; or smoked sturgeon, parsley sauce and crisp parsley roots (two courses £23, or three courses £30). Dinner, meanwhile, will be a richer affair with a choice of four pre-starters, including scallop ceviche; starters such as glazed veal sweetbread, lentils, maitake and celeriac; and main course delights such as The Grill lobster thermidor tart or Herdwick rack of lamb, ratatouille and boulangère potatoes (£60 for three courses or £75 for four; £20 supplement for lobster). There is also a standalone menu for vegetarians.

A choice of four pre-starters at dinner will include scallop ceviche

The Grill beef Wellington for two

For the grand finale, diners can indulge at the interactive pudding bar, where its pastry chefs will tempt them with treats such as banoffee tart with roasted banana ice cream or the Double Decker – a dessert inspired by the chocolate bar, which was named after the London red buses that pass the 88-year-old hotel in Park Lane on a daily basis.

The pudding bar