If you are going to learn how to cook, you may as well learn from the best — and you can’t get better than the Waterside Inn in Bray. Established by the brothers Michel and Albert Roux in 1972 and for the past 22 years under the control of Michel’s son, Alain, it has held three Michelin stars since 1985, the longest time of any restaurant outside France.
Through the Roux Scholarship, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, it has nurtured the talent of some of the best chefs in the country, including Sat Bains, Mark Birchall and the Great British Menu champions Spencer Metzger and Adam Smith. Now it is letting civilians in on the act with the launch of the Alain Roux Culinary School. Can it perform the same magic on a cack-handed amateur with a hungry family and a propensity for injuring himself?
The school offers full and half-day courses covering everything from cocktails and canapés to summer dinner parties (there’s even a half-day caviar experience). On many cookery courses you’re taught to make only specific recipes, but here they believe that success is built on classic techniques — although even someone of Alain Roux’s pedigree is always open to learning new things. “It really irritates me to see chefs who think they know it all,” he tells me. “The young generation is full of creative ideas, doing things that make you ask yourself, why did I never think of that?” And when you’ve learnt to do things properly, he adds, “you can then go on to be more adventurous yourself”.
You couldn’t ask for a more inspirational setting. The school is in Michel Roux’s old home, right next to the Waterside Inn, and the living room has been turned into a library for a cookbook collection of more than 3,000 volumes, which visitors are encouraged to browse at their leisure “to keep Dad’s inspiration alive”, Alain says.
The enlarged kitchen, with views of passing swans on the Thames, has six work stations, each with a sink, fridge and state-of-the-art V-Zug oven. I was joined on the day-long fish and seafood class by a father and daughter, bonding over their love of fine food, and Waterside regulars cashing in Christmas gift cards, no doubt bought selflessly by partners with no thoughts for personal gain.
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Under the good-humoured guidance of the longstanding Waterside chef Michael Nizzero, we set about making what would be the starter for lunch: scallops à la Parisienne, or poached scallops in a white sauce topped with piped pomme purée. First job was to open a pair of scallops the size of dinner plates. Then the tips and advice came quick and fast: add lemon juice to the water when boiling potatoes so they will be easier to peel; cook the butter until it smells biscuity before adding the flour to make a roux; only wash scallops in salted water…
Scallops successfully negotiated (note to self: work on decorative piping skills), we had time to do two types of gravlax — one with lemon and dill, the other with beetroot and orange — before our three-course lunch. The meal was a reminder of the Waterside Inn’s enduring appeal: the relaxed family atmosphere shone through in the service, and the rack of lamb plus tarte tatin with cinnamon ice cream were perfect. Only my scallop starter let the show down. A touch underseasoned, I thought. I’ll give the chef a bollocking when I get home.
In the afternoon things heated up as we took a crash course in filleting and cooking flat and round fish. Nizzero demonstrated with a majestic turbot on which it would have been near criminal to let us novices loose, but we did get to mutilate a dover sole and a bass.
It was during the cooking that the real lessons came to the fore. I thought I knew how to pan-fry fish, but now I really do; it’s all about the control of the temperature and use of seasoning. My takeaway tip? Add a dusting of gluten-free flour to your fillets and cook much more gently than you’d imagine is necessary to achieve that perfect, Michelin-standard golden crust. “You want to hear the fish sing as you put it in the pan, and then turn the heat down,” Nizzero said. My fish haven’t stopped singing since.
Details Courses from £390 per person, waterside-inn.co.uk
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Video direction: Mona Tehrani
Videography: Lauren Jennings
Edit: Cayetano Sahurie
