Guest Chef event with Neil Campbell

Rovi is the newest restaurant from Le Cordon Bleu alumnus Yotam Ottolenghi. The restaurant serves a menu which focusses on vegetables, with a fresh focus on fermentation and cooking over fire. Chef Neil has been in commercial kitchens for over 15 years and has enjoyed working with some of the best in the business: Roy Brett, Paul Kitching, Bruno Loubet and Raymond Blanc to name a few.

He is also a champion of sustainable cooking and the farm to fork theory. Growing up with a rural lifestyle on the Isle of Skye, Scotland gave Chef Neil valuable insight into and connection with food and it’s origins. When he isn’t busy at Rovi, Chef Neil enjoys regular visits to farms and suppliers in order to to gain practical and insider knowledge of every ingredient.

For this event Chef Neil presented two dishes from the current menu at Rovi. First, he demonstrated the method for which the restaurant is best known, cooking directly over fire. For this he slow-roasted leeks directly on the grill, leaving them unpeeled. Once cooked until soft, the outer skin is removed to reveal the perfectly cooked leek inside. Rather than discard the charred skin these are served as a crisp garnish for the dish. The leek was accompanied by a brown butter and whey molasses dressing with walnut tarator and crispy sage.

This was followed by a beautiful seasonal broth of butterbeans, parmesan skin and spring vegetables with a lovage and charred lemon pesto. The parmesan skin is infused in the cooking process of the broth, providing a rich flavour, but is discarded before serving. Both recipes made use of lesser used ingredients and by products which might otherwise go to waste, showing an excellent example of how you can reduce the amount of wastage that occurs when cooking.

If you’re interested in studying at Le Cordon Bleu London, find out more about our professional cookery courses and other culinary programmes.