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This is an interactive monthly magazine “Breakfast with a Chef”.
Breakfast with a chef features articles about many of the United Kingdom's leading chefs.
The articles have been written by Roisin Kiernan and are based on personal interviews with each chef. Each article also contains images of the restaurant or hotel where the chef works.
Breakfast with a chef contains 12 articles on a rotation basis with a new chef being added each month.
This month’s feature is on Ramon Farthing who owns and runs 36 On The Quay Emsworth the following is an extract from this month article:
If a stranger said they wanted to help fulfil your dreams you might well palm them off as a bit of a nutter. But, judging by the success of Ramon Farthing and his 'restaurant with rooms', 36 On The Quay in Emsworth, it could, quite literally, pay to listen.

At the time of Ramon's 'strange but true' proposal, he was happily ensconced in his position as chef manager of Michelin starred Harvey's of Bristol (Sherry Cream anyone?). “It was quite a unique set up,” he explains. A fairly good one too, by all accounts.

“They had a restaurant, a wine museum, and a wine shop. And the restaurant was adjacent to that.” It had been “a darling” in the Good Food Guide all through the '60s and '70s and was kitted out by Terence Conran, don't you know. By the time Ramon had been called in to help, though, it had “got lost in its 70s style”, so he went in to “sort it out,” and collect a few accolades for doing so - Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year as well as that all important Michelin star, among others.

Ramon had been at Harvey's for five years when one night he got called to front of house by someone who wanted to thank him for his meal. That same guy went on to ask Ramon what he wanted for his future, which was to open his own restaurant. “You know, every chef says it and every chef wants it, but very few get the opportunity. I certainly didn't want to be working for somebody else for the rest of my life.” So the guy simply said, 'well, maybe I can help you sometime'.

“When you're a Michelin starred chef you get quite a few proposals and you get headhunted but often you don't take any notice because very few of them have any substance.” A few weeks later, however, Ramon got a call from this diner Ray Shortland's secretary who asked if he minded being sent a proposal – which, of course, he agreed to. The rest, as they say, is history.

“In the long run he was quite a shrewd guy. He ran a consultancy business for up and coming chefs who wanted to buy restaurants, so this was a great advert for him.”

Together they “worked out a system”, which included the Farthing's running the restaurant, while Ray Shortland built up his consultancy business around it - “only for a about two or three years – that's all he wanted to do.

“I did a few things with him in London - went to a few chef seminars to explain how we did things. And within two years we bought the freehold.” In that time Shortland also “helped three other one star chefs open their own restaurants in the same way. So what became a very good deal for me and Karen also became a very good deal for him, because he had a guaranteed sale and was also able to run the consultancy business off the back of that.

“It was a very strange thing in the beginning; I was very sceptical, but looking back on it he was a very genuine man.”

It was quite a risk though. Ramon and his wife Karen had to sell their house in Bristol “to buy stock” and Karen went from the kitchen to running front of house, “which was something she knew nothing about” - but they've succeeded.

Ramon and Karen Farthing have been running 36 On The Quay for 15 years now. They've held a Michelin star for the last 13 of those years; are listed in the AA Guide; have three rosettes; and recently won the Restaurant with Rooms 2011 award in The Good Hotel Guide. Which is pretty good going, considering its location in the quaint little fishing village of Emsworth.

“One of the things we've always done is to keep our heads down and not shout about what we're doing; just do what we're doing good.” A style - along with a certain flare for fish - he no doubt picked up from his so-called culinary “father figure”, Chris Oakley.

Ramon was an apprentice under Chris at his “concept fish restaurant” - based on the famous Jimmy's Harbour Side restaurant in Boston. It was a “very brave” move to open a place like that in Harwich (Ramon's Essex hometown), “but it's still going, 35 years later.”

36 On The Quay runs in a similar fashion – with Ramon preferring to work on perfection rather than projection. He's definitely not one of those limelight kind of guys. Fish features as a speciality, as you would expect given the location, and dishes evolve from a special trial onto a menu of four options per course.

“You take everything you've learned and then you create your own style,” says Ramon about chefing. “A lot of what I do comes from classical teaching – French and English. I suppose it's modern British/European. But I do love Japanese food now.”

The use of dashi and miso soup or stock is written on the menu but a lot of what he's doing isn't always announced. “A couple of the dishes are done using sashimi style, where you actually pour hot oil on to the fish, rather than the fish into the oil.

“I think the Japanese have a way of treating fish with great respect. It bends well with the way I cook and is a big part of my menu now.”

It seems this laid-back Essex boy (Ramon is 50 years-old now), is quite happy to just see how things “pan out.

“We don't have any aspirations to do anything else. We started off as a small restaurant and that's what we wanted.”

The family of four, including wife Karen and two kids (a boy aged 21 and a 16 year old girl) all live in Emsworth; they're well known and now respected in the area; use as much local produce as possible; and have no desire to change things.

I guess you could say his dreams have been fulfilled.

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