The team did it says award-winning chef (From The Oxford Times)

The team did it says award-winning chef

3:23pm Wednesday 28th July 2010 in

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When asked for the secret of their success, award-winning chefs often speak of their passion for creating tasty food from basic ingredients. Although 30-year-old Alistair Barlow admits this is important, he places the ability to generate a happy team spirit in the kitchen as his prime objective. He does not believe that a head chef stands alone when cooking food in a busy pub.

Alistair is head chef at The Fleece Inn, on Church Green, Witney, which is part of the Peach Pub group. When he received a top award from the Craft Guild of Chefs earlier this year, which named him Pub Restaurant Chef of the Year 2010, he was overwhelmed. Winning this prestigious national award means a great deal to him, but he’s adamant he couldn’t have gained it without the help of his team. He is convinced that nothing of any worth can be achieved unless a kitchen brigade is able to work together.

The Fleece is a lovely old Georgian pub, overlooking the Green. Alistair has worked there for five years, beginning as a sous chef, then graduating to head chef within a year.

He began his culinary career in his local pub in Northamptonshire as a part-time cleaner while he was still at school, but soon worked his way up the ladder by taking on a two-year day release course and gaining NQU cookery qualifications. When that pub changed hands, he took on a full-time course and gained his NQU 3, which is the highest qualification a young chef can obtain.

On qualifying, he approached an employment agency and was pleased to discover they were really enthusiastic about his qualifications. Apparently, job seekers calling themselves chefs often have no qualifications at all. They offered him work immediately.

Alistair describes the next year working for the agency as his finishing school period, as he was sent to all manner of different places to stand in for a chef who was either ill or had left the job without warning.

He said: “I must have gone to more than 30 different kitchens during the year I temped for the agency. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was actually a great way of getting extra experience.

“One day I would find myself in a nursing home with no other instructions than a list of dishes to be cooked that day, then another I would find myself in a massive conference centre cooking 300 meals at short notice. It turned out to be great fun and certainly gave me lots of confidence.”

He then went for overseas experience, spending a season running a taverna on the Greek island of Paxos. Back in the UK, Alistair spent two years cooking in Devon before joining Peach Inns in 2005 as sous chef, advancing to head chef the following year. Since that moment, he says, he has never looked back.

“I love being here at the Fleece. It has a great atmosphere. I also enjoy the fact that when we change the menu each season, everyone sits down together to discuss and taste the dishes we plan to feature. It gives the staff an ownership of the menu and helps them feel pride in what they are creating.

“I involve the team in all aspects of the kitchen from writing the menus to ordering and budgeting.”

Once the new menu has been decided, it then goes through a series of tastings, not just with management and directors, but also with guests of The Fleece — the people who eat and drink at the pub frequently. They are Alistair’s toughest critics.

Because so many people are involved in assuring that the menu is the best it possibly can be, with British ingredients featuring wherever possible, Alistair is convinced that his award should be shared by all those who have helped to make it possible, including the junior commis chefs.

He is particularly proud of the progress his 17-year-old commis chef Dan Woolaston has made during the two years they have worked together.

“When Dan began working in the kitchen on a part-time basis while still at school, he planned to train as a paramedic. Now he wants to train as a chef. He is so good, there are times when I forget just how young he is.”

Two of his commis chefs are now at college, something he set up for them as he feels it is very important for enthusiastic youngsters to achieve qualifications as he did.

And his advice to any youngster who wonders if a kitchen career is the career for them? He says they should give it a try. It’s demanding work, but satisfying too. Alistair hopes that the time will come when he can open his own pub, But not yet — he’s enjoying his job at the Fleece too much to consider moving on at the moment.