Our series ‘The Modern Menu’ takes us to into the restaurants of some of our favourite chefs to talk to them about their approach to food and home cooking, plus get a recipe for a seasonal dish that can be made by you. ‘Chef’, however, is not a title that sits comfortably with Australian-born Skye Gyngell – “I don’t relate to it,” she says, “I’m a cook”. It’s a slight but revealing distinction and one that speaks to the pared-back simplicity of her approach, which first won favour in the low-key charm of Petersham Nurseries Café, a garden centre eatery in Richmond, in 2004.

Skye left her post as head chef (cook) of the café in 2012 – in no small part because of it being awarded a Michelin star, which she described as “a curse” – and followed it up with Spring, an emphatically beautiful dining room in Somerset House, putting out dishes led by seasonal ingredients of superlative provenance. Last year, continuing in the beautiful-food-in-beautiful-surroundings format, Skye took the helm of the two restaurants, Marle and Hearth, at Heckfield Place, a Georgian pile turned luxury country hotel in Hampshire.

We paid a visit to Skye at her new place of work, which she spends two days a week at, dividing her time between the country and London, for a chat about food, home and work, and got her recipe for hazelnut meringue with raspberry ice cream. Tuck in.

Skye: “In a way, I fell into cooking by accident when I was about 18. I got a job washing up in a kitchen owned by a gorgeous Lebanese woman, who had a heart the size of a watermelon and just really enjoyed food. There was a lot of joy in her approach, and her enthusiasm really affected me.

“It was the first time I had experienced warmth and conviviality through food, actually. I grew up in a very food-conscious family, but we all ate a macrobiotic diet, so not delicious food. The basic idea is that what’s provided by your local terroir is what is naturally good for you. There is also a big emphasis on grains, so it was basically brown food, with lots of porridge, and practically no protein. 

“It was a very groovy 1960s upbringing, and the first house I lived in was a treehouse, built into the side of a cliff on stilts, which you had to climb up to through tropical gardens. I’m definitely a visual person, and I think I get it from my parents. My mum was an interior designer and worked on incredible projects for an architect called Bill Lucas. We grew up with poured concrete floors, Saarinen tables and Eames chairs.

“I think you just absorb that stuff – you can’t help it really. I feel uncomfortable with things that I find ugly but it’s such a personal thing, taste, isn’t it? Everyone thinks they’ve got the best taste and that everyone else’s taste isn’t quite as good as theirs…

“But I’ve been in a visual world my whole life and I always think that with food, you’re painting a picture. Eating is a very sensual experience – it’s about taste, smell, texture – but the first thing is how it looks. That’s why I love the organic shapes and colours of vegetables, as they look beautiful on the plate.

“When I got that first job washing up, I was studying to be a lawyer, which I would have been awful at. I couldn’t have worked for five minutes in an office – I like to be on the move and busy physically and mentally.

“I ended up going to Paris to train for three years, and then came to London where I got a job in the Dorchester Hotel with Anton Mosimann, which was an experience that came as a rude shock to me. The kitchens at the Dorchester have about 160 chefs working in them, with escalators they’re so big, but there are no windows, so you wouldn’t know if it was the middle of December or the start of summer outside.

“I was like, ‘this isn’t what I signed up to’. I really love food – it makes me happy to be around, and I find fresh produce endlessly inspiring. But I’ve had to carve out my own career in the industry because I don’t feel comfortable being called a chef (which means ‘boss’ in French); I don’t love the structure of kitchen brigades, and sealed-off professional kitchens don’t bring me joy.

“Petersham had the ideal kitchen for me because it was all wooden and you could look out – it was kind of perfect. Plus the restaurant was a fully sensual experience, with that earthen floor and those old Victorian glasshouses; it was such a unique idea in 2004 and it made people feel something as soon as they came in, which I liked.

“But Spring’s kitchens are great too, and we have huge windows in one of them. I actually looked for two years for a site because I couldn’t bear to be in a kitchen that had strip lighting. I want to be connected, to the guest experience, and to the restaurant as a whole.

“When it comes to food, I would never put anything out at work that I wouldn’t want to eat myself at home and I don’t eat dissimilarly away from the restaurant. I’m definitely not one of those chefs who goes and eats a McDonald’s on the way home, which is a big chef thing.

“I actually eat in quite a similar, but hopefully more colourful, way to how I did growing up, with a lot of grains, vegetables and bread. I work Monday to Saturday, with two days here at Heckfield and the rest at Spring, so on those days I – and I know this sounds ridiculous – will often just get one lovely tomato, such as Sicilian Vesuvio, which are lovely this time of year, and I’ll eat one with a little salt and olive oil. Everyone at work laughs at me, but I find it a beautiful pleasure.

“Sunday is my day off and that’s when I’ll go to the market and cook something in the afternoon, often a one-pot thing like chicken with pumpkin and sage, and that will sit on the stovetop for a couple of days.

“I like food that tastes good for you, but I’m not into what I call ‘I-centred’ eating, which is all about the individual. I don’t care about a bloody chia seed, for example.

“What I do care about is the provenance of food, from meat to vegetables, cheese to bread, and I’m really conscious of food waste – it really upsets me when I buy too much. The trick is to have a well-stocked dry store, and then buy just enough fresh produce when you need it. So, my cupboards are full of things like grains, Capezzana olive oil, Volpaia vinegar, Ortiz anchovies, brown rice, and Maldon salt.

“Then, I’ll get six eggs a week from the market, maybe an Innes Log from Neal’s Yard, rye bread from work (because it lasts longer) and pull into the Natoora in Turnham Green a few times a week for vegetables and fruit. I always buy lemons, because I love the brightness they bring to cooking.

“At home, I have a Plain English kitchen, which I love, and it has nice details like leather handles, marble countertops and a copper sink. I don’t want gadgets at home so it needed to be as stripped-back as possible. I’ve got nice chopping boards that I picked up in Morocco and the South of France, a set of really good knives and a Kitchen Aid, and that’s about it.

“I think when you walk into a domestic kitchen it has to feel very personal and connecting, like the heartbeat of the home. I think I have achieved that because whenever my daughters have friends over they spend their whole time around the table in the kitchen, even though we have a big living room at the back.

“Home is not a social place for me, though; it’s more of a sanctuary. I wish I could be the person that has loads of people over all the time, but I’m not a big entertainer. I spend all day seeing and talking to people that I need to retreat at some point to regroup.

“Modernity in food is a really interesting idea. I think what’s happened in food over the last decade is a return to forgotten skills – things like proper bread-making with natural starters and slow rises, butter making, fermentation and preserving.

“You can see how the same thing has happened with interiors, with a return to craftsmanship and natural materials. When that sort of thing is done with consideration and thought it has a kind of modernity to it, with soul and depth.

“But that kind of looking backwards has to be done with a really fresh eye to be done well. Those things can easily become trends, which you don’t want to follow, especially in food, because they’re moving targets. Modernity to me is about authenticity, and I find real masters of their trade incredibly modern and timeless. And then you have the followers who jump on anything they think is trendy, who are completely missing the point to beauty.

“So, in the food world, the god is René Redzepi. A true change-maker, and genius, really. And then there are a million imitations of René, but the funny thing is they don’t even know they’re doing it! That’s why I love James Lowe’s cooking – he’s an intelligent, thoughtful chef with his own mind and you can see it in his food. You can smell authenticity a mile off.

“As for me, I’m in the last third of my working life and I feel pretty confident. I know I’m not the best cook in the world, or the most ground-breaking, but I just do what I do and enough people seem to like it. And I love it, which is lucky.”

Skye’s recipe for hazelnut meringue with raspberry ice cream

Hazlenut meringue
Makes 20 small meringues(they will keep really well in an airtight container for up to a week)

250g hazelnuts
120g egg whites
A pinch of salt
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
240g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 110ºC/100ºC fan/gas mark ¼

Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast until golden brown. Remove from the oven and, when cool, coarsely chop. Set aside while you prepare the meringue.

Place the eggs into a clean, dry bowl along with the salt and cream of tartar. Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs slowly at first until they begin to break down and then froth, then increase the speed for one minute before beginning to add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time.

Continue to beat until the meringue is very glossy and stiff peaks have formed. Fold in the hazelnuts and spoon onto a tray lined with baking paper.

Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 40 minutes. The meringue should have formed a delicate crust on the outside but be soft and chewy on the inside. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container until ready to use.

Raspberry sauce
350g ripe raspberries
2 tablespoon lemon juice
100g caster sugar

Place all the ingredients into a food processor and purée until smooth, then strain through a fine sieve to remove all the seeds. Place in the fridge to cool.

Raspberry ice cream
450ml double cream
150ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod, split in half lengthwise
6 organic free-range egg yolks
120g caster sugar
300g raspberries
50g caster sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Pour the cream and milk into a heavy-based saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add them to the cream/milk mixture along with the empty pod. Place the saucepan over a low heat and gently bring to just below the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse for 20 minutes.

Beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a large, clean bowl using a whisk until pale and thick. Strain the infused cream over the egg yolks and return to a very low heat in a clean saucepan.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in a figure of eight motion until the custard thickens – this can take up to 10 minutes. When ready the custard should be thick enough to coat the back of the wooden spoon. Remove immediately from the heat and strain again into a cool bowl.

While the custard is cooling, puree the raspberries in a food processor along with the sugar and lemon juice. Strain and stir through the cool custard. Transfer to an ice cream machine and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

To serve
120ml organic double cream

Pour the cream into a clean bowl and whisk gently until soft peaks form.

Place a meringue in the centre of the plate. Spoon over a little cream, place a scoop of ice cream on top and then spoon around the sauce and scatter over the raspberries. Serve at once.