Helen Peacocke talks to the man who serves up delicious food at Giffords Circus

Ollie Halas is one of those lucky people who has found his dream job. Ask him about his family and he’ll declare that Giffords Circus is his family. He will have it no other way.

Twenty-six-year-old Ollie heads up Circus Sauce, the travelling restaurant that accompanies Giffords Circus and serves up three-course al-fresco feasts of hearty, nostalgic classics at the end of every show.

It’s a never-to-be-forgotten dining experience which is cooked in two magnif-icent showman’s wagons with an adjoining canvas awning restaurant fixed between them that caters for 60 guests. All the food is freshly cooked each day and is served on large sharing platters which allow the guests to enjoy their meal in an informal fashion, often rubbing shoulders with stars of the show as they dine. It’s all great fun.

Bookings are already flooding in for this year’s tour which set off from Giffords Circus headquarters at Fennell’s Farm in Stroud last week. The 2015 summer tour takes in Stadhampton Village Green, Blenheim Palace, Oxford University Parks, Daylesford Organic Farm, and the Fox Inn in Barrington, before returning to the farm in September.

Ollie says the spontaneous happenings and daily hustle and bustle are what he loves so much, as well as the constant moving from one place to another. Nothing in the circus stands still for long, even the menu changes daily as everything Ollie cooks depends on where they are and what is available along the way.

He explained that plants from the hedge-row and herbs such as wild garlic are gath-ered as they journey from place to place, then play an important role in his menus.

“What I cook really does depend on where we are,” he says. “Wild nettles offer me the chance to make a really tasty soup, flavour the focaccia or serve an unusual vegetable. Elderflowers can be transformed into really fragrant puddings and if we stop at a pick-your-own, I can obtain all sorts of luscious fruits and vegetables to add to the menu.

“Then there are the American Signal crayfish in the rivers which I often use to make a stargazy pie”. Ollie admits that this pie, which was first made in Cornwall during the 16th century, was traditionally created from pilchards set in a mix of potatoes and eggs, with their heads and claws sticking out through a pastry topping.

“Cooked using crayfish that look as if they are trying to escape by crawling through the pastry crust makes for a very colourful and tasty dish, especially when served with a wild herb salad. The Romany Ring boys who work with the circus usually catch them for me from the River Severn,” he said, adding that their first menu this year featured pig’s trotters and ham hock from the farm’s pig they butchered themselves.

“The hocks were brined and jellied with parsley and the trotters were braised and broken down into colcannon, paned with oats and seeds and Jonathon Crimps double Gloucester cheese bursting out of the middle like it would out of arancini.”

When the guests arrive there is always a basket of fresh homemade bread on the table which includes nettle, garlic and focaccia (see recipe opposite) as nettles are best this time of the year. The main course is often an old classic of braised shin and oxtail cobbler with bone marrow popping through the cobbled pastry.

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The whole dish is enriched with creamed potatoes flavoured with a load of wild garlic that has been blitzed through. Puddings are often the old fashioned Knickerbocker glory, which really does evoke circus fun, particularly when Ollie makes them with all things chocolate, including brownies, mousse, sable and tuille biscuits topped with lashings of whipped cream.

In between all this the chefs act out their new food-related puppet show which they devised during the winter. Ollie describes it as both bizarre and wonderful, particularly as it is performed to the music of The Stripper. The puppet show certainly makes people laugh. “Yes”, says Ollie, “it may sound ridiculous, but be assured it adds that extra something that makes what we offer so special.”

Ollie learned to cook when he was very young. He admits to being obsessed by food when he was just ten years old. James Bob Parker, who runs Made by Bob, a high-quality restaurant and deli in Cirencester, taught him everything he knows. Celebrity chefs such as Marco Pierre White, who arrived at the circus one day to see what they were up to in their mobile kitchen, instilled an edge of excellence to Ollie’s approach and the dishes he cooks.

For a full list of tour dates, locations and to book tickets for Giffords Circus and Circus Sauce go to giffordscircus.com or call 0845 459 7469. Supper is priced at £25 a head per adult and £12.50 per child under 14. As it is not licensed, diners are invited to bring their own wine.