Star in the making

MOST 16-year-olds, should their mother and father announce they have had enough of the rat race, are giving up work, selling the family home and planning to live on a barge, might despair.

But for Adam Smith, recently appointed head chef at the acclaimed Devonshire Arms Hotel at Bolton Abbey, his parents’ realisation that they wanted a dramatically different lifestyle was a welcome turning point.

Up until then, Adam’s father, who worked in the car industry, strongly disapproved of his son’s desire to train as a professional chef.

“When I told him, before my GCSEs, that I wanted to be a chef, my dad went crazy. He said ‘You don’t want to do that, you’ll never earn any money. You won’t have a life’. I think he was hoping I’d join the Army or Police Force.”

Sadly, not long after this, Adam’s mother, a nurse, fell ill after injuring her back at work.

His father was also suffering from work-related stress. “Mum and Dad just sat me down and said they’d decided to give up work, sell the house and retire,” he says.

They were in their early to mid-forties.

“They said I’d have a lifetime of working long hours every day to earn money, that I should do whatever I enjoyed and made me happy.

That was an important moment. I gained their support.”

It was just the support the talented young chef needed to help him excel in such a highly competitive and extremely demanding career.

Tipped as one of the industry’s top talents and marked out by Michel Roux snr as “definitely one to watch”, his flair and ability was evident from the outset.

At the age of just 26, he has already notched up more awards than most chefs aspire to in a lifetime, including winning the Observer’s Young Chef of the Year and being one of only two British chefs to win a World Skills gold medal in the 40-year history of the prestigious competition.

As a Roux Scholar winner, he spent three months at the three Michelin starred Le Meurice restaurant in Paris and by his early twenties, he was executive sous chef at The Ritz, in charge of a team of 60.

But now he and his wife Sarah, who have a four-year-old son, Jacob, have left London behind to make a better life for themselves in the beautiful surroundings of North Yorkshire.

“We wanted our son to have the best possible upbringing in a beautiful area with good schools,” says Adam.

Without the one-and-a-half hour commute into work, he and his family now have an extra hour in the morning to enjoy breakfast together.

“I’m at work in 15 minutes. We enjoy family walks, taking the dog out. It’s a different way of life, a little bit more sedate.”

But, when it comes to Adam’s work, things are not quite so laid-back. For he is determined to win a Michelin star for his innovative food at the Devonshire’s Burlington restaurant.

“There are the same pressures whether you’re working in a five-star restaurant or a small country house hotel,” he says.

A classically trained chef, Adam is not one for wacky flavour combinations, but he enjoys adding a contemporary twist, such as in his signature dish of marinated scallops with raw soy and lime avocado, radish and a pig’s head croquette. “It’s classic French cooking with evolution,” he says. “I love the true art of mastering the stove, but I also feel the need for lighter touches.”

With culinary hotspots like the Star at Harome, the Yorke Arms in Ramsgill and the Box Tree in Ilkley right on the doorstep, he knows diners in this part of the world are particularly discerning: “I was probably a bit naive, being in London for so long. You don’t realise how big the food scene is round here.”

As well as the quality of life being better, he has quickly come to realise that the quality of local ingredients is better too. “Some of the local products I’m using here are the best I have ever had,” he says.

The Devonshire, perched on the edge of the Dales in 30,000 acres of its own land, is part of the Bolton Abbey estate of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, which provides the kitchen with a whole range of fresh Yorkshire produce, from meat and vegetables to fruit and herbs.

“Where we are, I can use small local producers who do exactly what I want to do and pick it on the right day. It’s phenomenal,” he says.

He enthuses about everything from the local grouse and rabbit to Yorkshire rhubarb and beerfed Dexter beef. “The fish I get from Hartlepool is fresher than anything I’ve had in the past. It adds a day to the life of the fish when it goes to Billingsgate Market in London, but here, it’s caught and comes to me the same day.”

Adam has always believed the key to the success of any dish is the quality of ingredients. “Nothing tastes better than sourcing beautiful, local ingredients and letting them shine on a plate,” he says.

“If you are using celeriac, you want to taste it. It’s about bold flavours, letting things taste of what they’re meant to taste of, purity of flavour.”

Originally from Birmingham, Adam’s love of cooking was nurtured at home as a schoolboy. “Mum is a great cook and quite adventurous. We used to have the usual stews, cottage pies and beef, but she would also make things like goat curry,” he says.

The first meal he cooked on his own for the family was a Sunday lunch, which ended in disaster.

“It was a big thing, we would have at least ten people every week. Not knowing what I was doing, I carved the beef with a boning knife. I cut myself and passed out. Everyone said: ‘You’ll never be a chef’.”

Adam’s initiation into the world of restaurant cooking began at the age of just 13, when he got a job as a kitchen porter to earn pocket money: “I lied about my age,” he says.

It was a baptism of fire. After a couple of chefs walked out, the keen schoolboy progressed from washing up to helping plate up dishes and making desserts. “I fell in love with the atmosphere, with being in the kitchen and being part of a team. The thrill and buzz of a Saturday night service was just manic,” he says.

It was his parents’ change of heart that gave Adam the confidence, at just 16 years old, to move to London after studying catering for a year in his home city. His first job was in the kitchens of the prestigious Ritz, working under the celebrated chef John Williams.

This was another world altogether. From working with two or three chefs in local restaurants, Adam joined a team of 40 and stayed nine years, working his way up from a lowly start.

As part of his training, he was sent on work experience to Michelin starred restaurants in the South of France. Some of the events he worked on included the Queen’s 80th birthday dinner. “Working at the Ritz exposed me to so many things. I’d go from doing breakfast, afternoon tea and room service sandwiches to the pinnacle of fine dining, travelling to somewhere like Buckingham Palace to do a function,” he says.

When he was first promoted to executive sous chef – number two in the Ritz kitchen – at just 21 years old, he was in charge of 55 staff, most of them older than him: “It’s quite a challenge, but people don’t think about your age if you lead by example,” he says.

Having been at the Burlington for less than a year, he is still discovering new things about this area and its produce. “Trying to find the right suppliers is one of the biggest challenges,” he says. He has just been to visit the farmers who provide his forced rhubarb, grown in dark sheds, so that the plant takes its energy from within, and picked by candlelight to ensure sweetness. “Yorkshire forced rhubarb is world renowned, second-to-none. The amount of work and effort they put into getting it right is a real eye-opener,” he says.

It is his job to do local ingredients like this justice, he says. “Being here, my style of cooking will change. I will grow, mature and develop,” he says.

The bistro at the Devonshire Arms

When it comes to his own favourite meal, he returns to the food of his childhood: “I’m a massive fan of the traditional Sunday lunch,” he says.

His parents are enormously proud of him, of course. And it must be a relief to know that now, he can safely use kitchen knives.

• W: thedevonshirearms.co.uk
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• E: res@thedevonshirearms.co.uk