Colin & Melanie Dawson Interview
Husband and wife chef team Colin and Melanie Dawson have been working together for 20 years and are both passionate about food.
The Drawing Room (www.the-drawing-room.co.uk/index2.html), in the heart of Wales, is a two-rosette restaurant with rooms, which they run with exacting standards and the utmost attention to detail.
What are your most memorable childhood 'food' memories?
Colin: Grannie's rabbit pie for supper and field mushrooms (www.fungiforays.co.uk/) poached in fresh cow's milk from their farm in Yorkshire for breakfast.
Melanie: Picking wild watercress in East Anglia with Dad and tasting it for the very first time.
What is your favourite food secret?
Colin: Beurre Monte: a workhorse sauce that has many uses such as poaching lobster or resting meat. Just a few drops of water and butter. The rest is secret!
What food would you travel to the UK for?
Melanie: Cardigan Bay crab and lobster.
What are your favourite seasonal foods?
Colin: Welsh Spring lamb and St. George's mushrooms. Both are eagerly awaited. We find spring an exciting time of year, when everything is starting to grow.
What is your favourite local food shop?
Melanie: Van's Wholefoods in Llandrindod Wells, which has everything from local honey to the more exotic.
Besides The Drawing Room do you have a favourite local restaurant?
Colin:The Stagg (www.thestagg.co.uk/) at Titley near Kington - the first pub in the UK to be awarded a Michelin Star. Not really local but worth the short drive across the border to
Herefordshire,
England.
What is your favourite pub?
Melanie: The Triangle in Rhayader. A small, friendly local with good pub grub.
What are your favourite dishes or recipes?
Colin: Home-made cheese crackers from a recipe by Fergus Hendersons' at St. John in London. We eat them with anything, or just on their own with lashings of butter.
Name an inspirational food person? Why?
Colin: Has to be Marco Pierre-White, a genius of his time. Wish he were still in the kitchen cooking professionally.