Kenny's star turn

IT’S come full circle for Kenny Atkinson. The renowned chef, famous for appearing on TV’s The Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen is back in the region where he was born running his own restaurant, House of Tides. Standing on Newcastle’s illustrious Quayside, it occupies a Grade I listed, 16th Century former merchant’s townhouse, lovingly restored by Kenny and his wife Abbie as a smart, yet rustic, venue. It’s a far cry from where he started, as a school leaver on a stall in the city’s Grainger Market.

“I couldn’t boil water,” admits the 39-year-old. “Basically, for me it was an introduction to ingredients that I wouldn’t normally use or eat. I was just selling them – I wasn’t eating them. It wasn’t an easy job.”

Finding he had a passion for food but that there weren’t the opportunities locally to develop it, Kenny moved away, learning his craft from some of the country’s top chefs before moving to the Scilly Isles. It was here, at the Tean Restaurant, in 2008, that he won his first Michelin star. This heralded a return to the region, where he repeated his success at Seaham Hall, winning a second Michelin star for The White Room, before ending up at the prestigious Orangery at Darlington’s Rockliffe Hall.

After leasing the building almost three years ago, Kenny and Abbie, who have two sons, Aaron, ten, and six-year-old Aidan, opened House of Tides in February 2014. A raft of awards followed, including being named North East Restaurant of the Year in the 2014 Secret Diner Awards, a 62nd place ranking in Restaurant Magazine’s Top 100 UK Restaurants in 2015 and winning the Catey – the Oscars of the restaurant world – for Best Newcomer 2015. The icing on the cake came last September, when House of Tides won a Michelin star.

Now the 60-cover restaurant, with storage and cooking facilities limited by its size, has become a victim of its own success – you’re lucky to get in unless you book well in advance. Kenny might be rushed off his feet, but he’s not complaining.

“It’s been an amazing two years,” he reflects. “Since all the accolades started coming through for us, business has doubled and it’s trying to get people in now. It’s one of those things where we would love to cater for everybody but it’s the frustration of trying to get people in on a Saturday.”

While terms like “seasonal” and “locally sourced” have become ubiquitous, Kenny fully embraces them, changing the menu at least every other week. The restaurant website provides a list of ingredients you’re likely to see – this season, there are things like beetroot, wild mushrooms and quince – and Kenny makes no apologies for the lack of choice.

“We offer a very small menu and we do get a bit of, ‘I expected more choice’, but for us, it’s about the quality and how we portray our menu,” he says. “We’re all about quality – we try to buy the best food we can of the best quality. We don’t have a huge array of suppliers. How it works with the fishmonger is I get an email every day to let me know what the catch is for the following day. It’s the same with the butcher. Rather than us try and tell them what we want to use, they recommend things to us. Fish is always inconsistent.”

As far as Kenny is concerned, allowing his suppliers to dictate menus, and not the other way around, is common sense. This doesn’t always apply, though, and in a bid to provide choice, restaurants can compromise on freshness. “I’ve worked in places where we’ve had maybe six main courses and one is the big seller and things are sitting in the fridge for three or four days,” says Kenny. “Nothing in our fridges stays there for more than a day and it’s the perfect way to work. The food is more vibrant, it’s in season and there’s nothing sat around in fridges for days on end.”

House of Tides winning a Michelin star marks the first time in almost 20 years that a Newcastle restaurant has held the accolade, the last being Terry Laybourne’s 21 Queen Street, in 2000. Famed for so long as a party city, Kenny hopes it will finally be recognised as a centre of culinary excellence. “What we have in Newcastle is phenomenal produce – alongside Scotland, Cornwall and places like that,” he says. “Going on The Great British Menu and winning twice allowed me to showcase that.”

If quality is paramount, then creating the right ambience is equally important to Kenny. With House of Tides, he set out to provide great food in a relaxed environment. The latter, he feels, isn’t easy to achieve.

“Me and my wife have been to some phenomenal restaurants and people try to do relaxed fine dining, but they can’t,” he says. “When we founded House of Tides, with the nature of the building being rustic but quite elegant, you do feel relaxed straight away.”

A key part of any restaurant’s atmosphere is the staff and Kenny believes he has found the right teams, both front of house and in the kitchen. He’s very hands-on, explaining, “I have been since day one because this is my baby.” The advice he gives to employees partly stems from his early experience at the market, where stallholders depended on good customer relations for their livelihoods.

“I always say to my guys, ‘You can make it as complicated or as simple as you like, but at the end of the day, what are we here for? To have a smile on our face, give the guests a great experience and talk to them as human beings.’ I think some places get so hung up on food that they forget the fundamentals of what restaurants are about.”

www.houseoftides.co.uk