Yes Chef

The lights you could see in the skies above Lancashire’s Ribble Valley earlier this year were 21 Michelin stars illuminating Northcote hotel. RUPERT BATES feeds at Obsession

Realising you’re going to be sitting next to Alex Greene for dinner is a huge disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, arguably Northern Ireland’s finest chef is excellent company, but if I’m eating, I’d much rather he was in the kitchen.

Dismay quickly turns to joy when I realise who is cooking; none other than Lisa Goodwin-Allen, executive chef of Northcote, for this is the first of 17 consecutive nights of Obsession, an extraordinary culinary experience held at the boutique Northcote hotel, with its Michelin-starred restaurant in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley on the edge of the Forest of Bowland.

Every night is hosted by a different chef in Northcote’s kitchen – the list a veritable who’s who of gastronomic talent, from seasoned superstars to new kids on the pass. Lisa Goodwin-Allen, one of the UK’s most acclaimed chefs, kicked off the festival on her home turf, before opening her kitchen and brigade to guest chefs, all hugely honoured to have got the coveted call to cook at Obsession, with the last night hosted by Michel Roux Jr and his daughter Emily Roux.

“I’m often asked how we manage to keep the energy levels high during Obsession, but when you’re working with chefs of this calibre, every night is different, with different teams and personalities, it flies by and it’s honestly a real privilege to be part of something so special. That’s not to forget the huge team effort it takes to pull together a festival that runs on 17 consecutive nights. We have an incredible team that helps to make Obsession the success it is,” said Goodwin-Allen.

Obsession, dating back to 2001, is in some ways a cruel sport, although voraciously enjoyed by spectators like me, simply ‘tasked’ with eating and drinking. Tradition dictates that the chef cooking the next day dines the evening before.

It is perhaps a trite analogy but in terms of sustained perfection, it is the cooking equivalent of a darts player at the World Championships throwing 180 and then shouting: ‘Follow that’ – and everyone does.

I didn’t devour all 17 tasting menus – I would have done if my bank manager and cardiologist had allowed – but you can be confident every evening delivered food of sublime quality. And the wine, dear lord, the wine. Epicurus meet Bacchus.

And so I found myself sat next to Alex Greene, until recently head chef at the Michelin-starred Deanes EIPIC restaurant in Belfast. In both 2019 and 2020 he cooked two of the courses at the BBC’s Great British Menu banquet – a young Irishman of rich ability, used to cooking brilliant food under the greatest pressure.

But it’s called Obsession for a reason, and Greene was nervous, if excited, as each of Lisa’s exquisite dishes came out. First was the Scottish mackerel, then the roast veal sweetbread, with wines from Australia followed by France. A very convivial evening among paying and invited guests, but every time a dish was served, there was the sound of silence as plate met palate, unspeaking eyes registering the celebration of food at its finest and most delicate. Wild turbot washed down with a Californian Chardonnay was next and then squab pigeon before the clementine dessert.

“Obsession is something I’ve always inspired to be at. The expectation, what it means, what it’s about. It brings nerves, yes, but no matter where I was or what I was doing, I wasn’t going to say no,” said Greene.

It is instructive sitting next to a top chef tasting the work of an inspirational peer, making metaphorical notes and appreciating the invention and execution that goes into every element of each dish.

The dining was inside – we’re talking January with snow on the Lancashire lawns – but thoughts inevitably turned to BBQ. I suggested to Northcote managing director Craig Bancroft that he hosts a summer of barbecue feasts, by kings and queens of al fresco cooking – an Outdoor Obsession, an Eternal Flame, an Infatuation of Fire.

Bancroft gave me the look of a man who had 17 days, 18 world-class chefs, 21 Michelin stars, 1,754 guests, 105 dishes, 85 matched wines and 576 bottles of champagne ahead of him – not to mention raising over £100,000 for three charities, Hospitality Action, Debra and EYE Nepal. But, knowing Bancroft himself is a BBQ obsessive, the seed has been sown.

Northcote Cookery School runs barbecue courses, cooked over a range of grills and ovens – Monolith, Weber, Ozpig smoker, Pit Barrel, Gozney and Kasai Konro. Classes include cooking Moroccan spiced lamb shoulder, jerk beer-can chicken, Obsession gin and tonic quail and stone bass.

Alex Greene loves barbecue too and elemental live-fire cooking outdoors. Never has the expression farm-to-fork had such resonance than when listening to this chef-farmer’s passion for local produce and the imperative of provenance. His latest venture, together with business partner Bronagh McCormick, is a new restaurant with rooms at The Bucks Head in Dundrum, near the mountains of Morne in Northern Ireland with the de terra shorthorn beef from his Dundrum family farm.

Indeed, it is back to the very beginning, for The Bucks Head is where Greene’s culinary journey began in his home village, prepping vegetables aged 11 in summer holidays, before going on to cook in legendary London kitchens such as Claridge’s and Petrus. Greene also runs Fish & Farm, a retail business in the seaside town of Newcastle, County Down, selling and serving seasonal produce, including meat, fish and cheese.

As we talk food and fire, he tells me that the shorthorn beef, with beets, lovage, cheek boulangere and Bushmills whiskey, is on his Northcote menu, paired with an Argentinian Malbec. I vow to hide in the Louis Roederer Room and sneak a seat at Obsession Day 2. I then learn that fire god Gareth Ward is in the kitchen on Obsession Day 3 – the chef-patron of the two Michelin-starred Ynyshir restaurant in Wales, where the mantra is ‘ingredient led, flavour driven, fat fuelled and protein obsessed’.

I prayed for snow that first night – heavy snow that sees you stranded in the Lancashire countryside for 17 days.

Obsessed? Totally.