Local Sourcing at The Crown Hotel

An interview with Head Chef Robert Mace

We’re passionate about local sourcing here at Adnams. We live in a beautiful corner of England, and we’re lucky that there’s so much top quality food and produce on our doorstep.

Robert Mace, Head Chef at The Crown Hotel in Southwold, is one of the biggest advocates of local sourcing within Adnams, and is constantly on the lookout for suppliers that produce healthy, good-quality food. The quality and provenance of the ingredients is key to producing fabulous food dishes.

Why source produce locally? The food has had less distance to travel, which means that it hasn’t been hauled half way across the world to land on our plates. It can be picked fresh to order, it benefits the local economy, and not only that, it gives us a lovely story to tell on our menus. It’s great to be able to say to our customers that the beef they are enjoying today was raised on the marshes of Southwold.

Head Chef Robert Mace in The Crown kitchen

Fish

It makes sense to use locally-sourced fish, as we’re right on the coast and situated next to the fishing port of Lowestoft. However, from a conservation and sustainable point of view, we still have to be careful. Our fish is primarily sourced from East Coast Fish, with a certain amount being caught by a boat called ‘Maximus’ which has RFS accreditation (responsible fishing scheme). I asked Robert about how fish supplies vary during the year, “We see lots of Bass in the summer, and in the winter Cod and Skate. Cod is still okay to catch if it’s from a sustainable source. The winter isn’t the best time for getting fish as the weather is just not great, it’s dangerous for the boats, there’s usually less fish on the market and prices increase. You can find fish that isn’t so popular though – there’s lots of Sprats this time of year, which are often seen as ‘throw away’ products”. And, he adds smiling, “they are as cheap as chips”.

Vegetables

The Adnams Hotels team buy vegetables from suppliers who either grow their own, or have access to farms across Norfolk and Suffolk. What we buy depends on what is in season. Coming up soon is asparagus. We’ve got one of the best growers of asparagus just a few miles up the road from Adnams – Sea Breeze in Wrentham. Robert is planning a dawn trip to the farm with his kitchen staff to help cut the spears. Like most vegetables, it’s best eaten as soon after picking as possible. Robert’s philosophy on food is that you have to fully understand it to cook it properly. It’s very important that he is confident that his staff appreciate how things are raised, and that applies to vegetables as well as to how animals are brought up, killed and butchered.

For bulk vegetable orders, Robert buys from Accent Fresh, a company based in Downham Market. They’ve got a wild food expert working with them who forages for food like mushrooms and seashore vegetables. “There’s also some wild food near to the Crown – you can find wild fennel growing in profusion along the harbour. There’s samphire, too, but we can’t pick that as it’s growing in a site of special scientific interest. I use Wangford Farm Shop for vegetables, it’s just a few miles from the Hotel. They cater mainly for their local shop customers, but I can find some great produce. I’m getting sprout tops at the moment from the farm. Usually, the tops are thrown away, but they are delicious sweet greens, similar to cabbage”.

Robert spoke passionately about a new jam supplier he discovered through Tastes of Anglia called ‘Garden of Suffolk’. This is a mother and daughter venture using old, pre-war jam recipes, utilising traditional fruits such as medlars, along with the popular hedgerow varieties. These jams are hand-made – a pure and totally honest product that tastes absolutely great.

Meat

At The Crown Hotel, Cleveleys is the primary meat supplier, although the team also use Pelham & Talbot and buy beef from Sotherton Farm. Sotherton graze a small herd of cattle on Southwold town marshes. The meat is of super quality, but only available in small quantities, and we buy a wide range of cuts as a single cow can only produce so much of the most popular cuts. Robert’s ethos is that if you kill an animal, you should use all of it, thus he’s not shy in featuring the less popular cuts of meat on our menus – you’ll find shin of beef, and brisket broth – all are flavoursome and delicious. “It takes more skill as a Chef to make a cheaper cut taste good and also to get customers to buy it”. I asked why the cheaper cuts tended to have lots more flavour, “it’s because the muscles work harder – it demands a longer, slower cooking time.”
Pelham and Talbot source meats from Norfolk and Suffolk farms. One of Robert’s favourite cuts at the moment is ‘short rib’, also known as Jacobs ladder – a cut that’s very popular in the USA. It needs a skilled butcher to create, and a good Chef to make the most out of it.

Robert Mace takes a ‘River Cottage’ approach to sustainability. We can’t be 100% self-sufficient at Adnams, but we can utilise the resources we have on our doorstep. Wherever possible, Robert will feature wild foods on the menu. “Wild foods are fantastic if you know what you’re looking for. It’s a specialist area, so stick with the golden rule, ‘if in doubt, leave it out’.” Common leaves such as nettles will feature in some form in the spring, as well as hedgerow berries. It makes sense for us to pick blackberries from the hedgerows when they are in season to create delicious crumbles.

“When I was first trained as a Chef, there was not much thought as to seasonality – I cooked food that I enjoyed cooking. Now, I cook food that I enjoy to eat. My entire approach to menus has changed over the last three years since I’ve been at The Crown. The whole kitchen brigade get involved with the food. Public awareness is changing in line with this. It’s great to see that when we put things like herrings on the menu, other restaurants follow our lead, which is a huge compliment. The challenge is to educate and encourage customers to try new things”.

Robert explained that he was about to put rosé veal on to the menu. “I have a great deal of respect for the animal that we’re killing in order to put it on everyone’s plates. Veal is a bi-product of the dairy industry. A male calf of a dairy cow is incinerated soon after birth. I feel this is a terrible waste. Rosé veal is kept with its mother, and grown for up to six months with access to grass. That’s why it’s called rosé, as its skin has had access to light, which changes its colour. If you drink milk, or eat dairy products, there’s no need to shy away from rosé veal. A cow’s life should not be that disposable. If you’re prepared to eat meat, you should be prepared for the horror that goes with it. I’ve been to an abattoir, it’s not nice, but as a Chef I feel I need to understand the whole process. I need to ease my conscience. I am against intensively farmed meat, I need to know that the animal has had a good life before it is killed. Yes, there’s a need for more intensively farmed products such as salmon. This is never going to be local for us, but we source Loch Duhart salmon, fed an organic diet in tidal lochs, and are as close to wild salmon as you can get.”

Robert has recently launched his ‘Suffolk Sundays’ menu. This is traditional Sunday lunch fare made with local, seasonal produce – Sotherton beef, Henham lamb, and any wild foods that are available at the time. It’ll include old-fashioned favourites such as prawn cocktail and apple crumble. “Creating a menu is a balance between meeting customer expectations, and what’s seasonally available locally.”

Head Chef Robert Mace carrying a fresh plate of seafood at The Crown Hotel