Breaking Bread with Chef Simon Rogan
Curating the cuisine on board the Britannic Explorer train, Chef Simon Rogan MBE is an award-winning British chef and restaurateur who pioneered the farm-to-fork movement in the UK. We talk to him about the culinary ethos that shapes his love of food.
As the Britannic Explorer wound its way from London deep into the Lake District, we sat down with Chef Simon Rogan – Culinary Curator of the Britannic Explorer – to discover the inspiration behind his ethos and the menus that he has created for each of our iconic journeys.
Starting in Cartmel at his 12-acre farm, Chef Rogan shares how the working land forms the foundations for his dishes along with his favourite herbs, fruits, and vegetables to cook with. We learn how childhood memories of his father bringing fresh produce from the markets in Southampton shaped his values as a Chef, and how he is now bringing this into every dish served onboard our iconic British train.
What shaped your early interest in wanting a career connected to food and cooking?
Simon Rogan: My father was a fruit and vegetable wholesaler at Southampton Market, and I always remember him coming home each week with a goodie bag of things that otherwise might have gone to waste. This was the time when things like papayas, mangoes or star fruit was were alien ingredients that nobody knew what to do with and even back then, I didn't like waste. I researched them and I worked out how to eat them or cook with them. It was ingredients like this that inspired me and formed my inquisitive nature in the kitchen.
How did you first feel when approached by Belmond to be the Culinary Curator for the Britannic Explorer?
SR: It was such an exciting opportunity to showcase what the British countryside side has to offer not only in terms of ingredients, but the beautiful scenery. Luxury train travel has such romance and nostalgia attached to it and so we wanted to let the food reflect the same sense of occasion and escapism, but still wanted to be connected to each of the three journey’s destinations.
How did you start the process of creating the menus for each journey?
SR: We use ingredients to try to connect our guests to the landscapes that they are travelling through, and sample the best that each area has to offer. It's been a great experience to try and really carry that off. From your simplest poached egg at breakfast in the morning to your very last petit four at night, I think every dish on our menus are using ingredients with a story to tell. Everything is very thoughtfully curated for our guests; it's also very special to me that one of the journeys is to the Lake District and on that trip, guests get to come and visit my farm in Cartmel, ‘Our Farm’.
BRITANNIC EXPLORER
See Britain through new eyes aboard the first ever luxury sleeper train in England and Wales, paying homage to the Great British tradition of touring while driving it forward with fresh rhythms of culture and creativity.
