Lewis King: Homegrown ingredients and considered cooking
Passionate and local chef honours classic British food, delivered excellently.
In conversation with Foster Refrigerator
We recently visited Lewis King to learn about his career progression and the business decisions made that have led to his restaurant being listed in the prestigious Michelin Guide since 2019.
Situated in Snettisham, in the heart of rural Norfolk, The Old Bank thrives on sourcing local, quality produce and letting the flavours take centre stage.
Q: Lewis, what first drew you into professional cooking and how has that early inspiration shaped the kind of restaurant you and Aga have created here at The Old Bank?
Lewis: I honestly kind of fell into cooking in my late teens, but I really just needed something, just some kind of direction to my life. I ended up on a course over at Cambridge, got myself a job and it kind of spiraled from there really.
I'm sure, you know, some people have this one person they learn everything from. I don't have that. I've been lucky to work with a lot of really talented people and I've drawn from each of them.
Q: The Old Bank's menu, it looks like a celebration of the ingredients, the local provenance and seasonality as well?
Lewis: We try and buy as locally as we can. Some things are easier than others and I think it would surprise people what you can't get around here. Fish for example. Amazing fresh fish is really hard to come by considering we're four miles from the sea. We use local fishmongers and the shellfish is absolutely incredible but for other fish we sometimes have to go a bit further afield. But as much as we can, we try and buy as close as we can, we definitely try to buy within the British Isles.
Q: What style of cooking do you enjoy most?
Lewis: We would call our food modern European because it is influenced by techniques that have come from France, from Italy, Spain and you know, places like that. But the ingredients that we use, the ingredients that I like to cook with, it's just mostly good old familiar British flavours and flavour combinations. I think that you can get within these borders some of the best food in the world.
I mean, British fruit is some of the best in the world. I appreciate fruit that comes from the other side of the world, it's delicious, but I would rather put a strawberry on the menu that's been growing 20 miles up the road.
“I appreciate fruit that comes from the other side of the world, it's delicious, but I would rather put a strawberry on the menu that's been growing 20 miles up the road.”
What benefits do you experience as a chef achieving such success outside of a major metropolitan city?
Lewis: I grew up around here. 25 years ago, 30 years ago, there was no restaurants like this around here. I remember when my mum called me and said that The Neptune had got a Michelin Star and I was like "You must have misread that". It's like, wow, things are changing. So it is a little bit easier to stand out.
But also one of the pluses that we have out here is that you can get Sharrington strawberries, for example, amazing things like that. You know, the relationships that you can build up with your butcher, for example, the fishmongers, I can call on these guys.
Q: How do you balance the everyday, practical business pressures of ingredients costs, for example, with staying true to your values around quality and authenticity?
Lewis: It's one of the reasons that we run the style of venue that we run now. Obviously, we don't have the wastage that can go along with an a la carte style choice menu. We are very selective with what we use. I think that is the key really, to being able to do what we do and keep the price kind of where we want it to be.
Q: And food freshness and waste reduction obviously matters, which all operators face. So how do you approach food waste?
Lewis: I think we were always pretty hot on waste. You've got two buckets out the back where all the veg scraps go. So you virtually no veg scraps go in the bin whatsoever, everything is composted. Moving to a tasting menu format was very much thought by wanting to try and waste less food. It's something we are pretty conscious of where we can be.
Meat trimmings for example, we'll always try and incorporate that into a dish. I think people really like it when you come out and you explain your fish dish and you tell them how you've made the sauces and the bones and the fish, the crab bones, the crab shells and the little stars that you had, you've taken those from this and incorporated it into this.
“You get out of bed to pay the bills, but you work through until 11 o' clock at night because you want to make people happy.”
Q. Do you think there's any misconception conceptions of diners or the public have of fine dining restaurants and what it takes to run?
Lewis: I think people are very much more aware of what it takes to run a business these days. There's been TV shows and also the rise of social media has kind of really opened a door, giving people an insight into how a restaurant runs the back of house operations.
I think people know what it takes to put on the plate what we've got on the plate. I think people really do appreciate that.
Q. Finally, what keeps you motivated after years in the kitchen?
Lewis: You get out of bed for the, for the money, to pay the bills, but you work through until 11 o' clock at night because you want to make people happy.
I think we've reached a point where we're really happy with what we offer, and how we offer it. It's now just about smoothing down rough edges here and there and trying different things.
Thank you to Lewis and The Old Bank for participating.
These are principles echoed by Foster. Even the best produce can spoil without proper storage – so to be sure you’re partnering with the best.