Phil Vickery
Restaurateur, sportsman, baker and businessman. You’d want Phil Vickery beside you in field, kitchen and boardroom, as RUPERT BATES reports
An hour in the gentle company of Phil Vickery is as leavening as the bread he bakes.
Gentle? Phil Vickery, purveyor of Raging Bull clothing, who won the Rugby World Cup with England in 2003 in one of the toughest packs to ever grace the game. That Phil Vickery? Yes, that Phil Vickery.
We must start with a distinction. There is the professional chef Phil Vickery, a regular on ITV’s This Morning and author of numerous cookbooks and then there is Phil Vickery, the rugby star and a fine cook in his own right, winner of Celebrity MasterChef in 2011 and owner of No.3 restaurant in Cheltenham.
That would be enough for most people, but there are plenty more layers to Vickery – farmer, philosopher, storyteller, with food his constant companion and the community glue he values so highly.
“It is what we most missed during the pandemic – those moments together as family and friends. Reasons to meet so often revolve around food and drink,” says Vickery.
The former England rugby captain is one of those natural conversationalists who likes to muse and reflect, preferably while cooking. “I bake way too much!” laughs Vickery.
He is, as we speak, “messing around with a few different breads and flours” and has a blueberry muffin loaf on the go. Check out his orange and chocolate bread and butter pudding, which helped him to MasterChef victory.
Vickery’s sourdough posts on Instagram are required viewing, therapeutic in delivery and vision, keeping it simple. ‘Flour, water, salt, honey and mother nature.’
For Vickery it is less about the food and what you eat, but who you are eating it with, making the meal a special event, creating stories and remembering what is important.
Vickery is passionate about live-fire cooking too. “Sitting in the garden watching the flames – the greatest television ever invented. There is no better way or place to bond than over food and fire, having fun and sharing intimate moments, building relationships, and with the capacity to repair them too.”
Vickery has been working with Bramblecrest, cooking on fire tables and also enjoying the Cotswolds company’s range of outdoor furniture to elevate dining, social spaces and al fresco experiences at home.
“Cooking and griddling on the Bramblecrest firepit table creates wonderful smells and sounds and visually seeing your food being cooked adds an extra layer of excitement, setting the scene for those special moments, spending time with friends and family.”
Vickery takes great pleasure out of people enjoying his cooking. “It is all about sharing food and eating it together. Good food is a by-product of great company.”
Authenticity is everything for Vickery. His No.3 restaurant was born of purpose and purity – the holy trinity of food, people and service, in partnership with executive chef and co-owner Tom Rains.
Tomahawk steak or a whole baked seabass are signature dishes and there is of course sourdough, with Netherend Farm butter and Cotswold Gold oil, as well as sea salt and rosemary focaccia. He would love to have more outdoor space at the restaurant and culinary thoughts turn to smoke and flame on the grills.
While a passionate proponent of food provenance and rural enterprise, Vickery stresses, especially amid a cost-of-living crisis, that not everybody can afford to buy independent and local. It is, he says, about making informed choices within budgets and if enough people make small changes, it can make a big difference, putting pressure on supply chains and retailers to meet the right kind of demand.
“Nobody loves animal protein more than me. But maybe eat less and think more about the quality – better quality means it is better for you, better for the producers and better for the environment,” says Vickery.
“My sporting background taught me to look at myself as an investment; we are what we eat and the best investment is through the right food and hydration.”
Before prop forward Vickery risks expulsion from rugby’s front-row union, he stresses that he is very much a steak man.
“To this day nothing beats a medium-rare ribeye, with a bit of salt and seasoning, a chunk of sourdough with proper butter leathered on and some vegetables.”
We then talk vegetables, lots of vegetables. Vickery loves charred greens, be it broccoli or cabbage, and has fallen back in love with sprouts. “I eat them like sweets.”
“I enjoy rubs on vegetables but enjoy the vegetable for itself – there is a wonderful earthiness, a bitterness and that lovely char you get from the fire.”
Growing up in a Cornish farming family, Vickery not only understands livestock and the importance of animal husbandry, but remembers being surrounded by vegetables, fruits and flowers too, following the seasons and supplying local shops.
As well as farming running through the generations – his brother runs the family farm near Bude – Vickery’s great-grandfather was a butcher.
He recalls being given his own garden by his grandfather to tend as a child. “There were no rules other than we had to look after our patch. I used to spend hours there and learning from my grandparents. I was recently asked to keep an eye on a friend’s allotment and help myself to anything ready to pick. I was like a kid in a candy shop. You can’t beat that food connection and it is so good to get engaged at an early age.”
Another friend had a surfeit of pears, so Vickery was off poaching them with wine and honey. His experimenting has also extended to home brew, including elderflower wine and beer.
“Food and drink pairings are fascinating, bringing the best out of each other.”
Food for Vickery extends beyond his own kitchen and the No.3 restaurant. He is a non-executive director of Creed, a Gloucestershire-based food service business for chefs and caterers, but more than just a wholesaler, with education, health and innovation key tenets too.
Vickery also works with 44 Foods, an online retailer partnering with the best farmers and producers, delivering fresh, seasonal, ethical food with a field to fork ethos.
Meanwhile, Raging Bull continues to thrive – a sports and leisure wear brand built from scratch after England’s World Cup win, with Vickery praising the ‘incredible teams’ he has around him across his businesses.
“I have been very fortunate making a living from farming, food and rugby. They are about the same things, the same people and the same values, passionate about what they do and doing the right thing.”
Vickery keeps in good shape down the gym, but his rucksack will invariably contain a loaf or two of sourdough, the freshly baked bread making him plenty of friends amid the weights. Wherever he goes he cannot help sharing.
“I’m a gentle, soft old soul really,” says the dairy farmer’s son who won 73 caps for England, five for the British & Irish Lions and playing Premiership rugby for Gloucester and Wasps.
Vickery wants to go for a walk – with a grill. Perhaps the Malvern Hills, stopping to cook a steak and tell a story, embracing nature and celebrating the landscape.
“Enjoying food and the outdoor space; talking and laughing with friends and family has always been there. I’m not reinventing the wheel; I just want to bring it back up the ladder of importance.”
Phil Vickery is one of those people you’d want at your dream dinner party. But it would have to be outside and he’d have to cook it.