Chefs who deliver dishes that that live (and eat) on doorstep

CHEFS Ryan and Liam Simpson-Trotman were back cooking on television on Saturday where they barbecued pigeon.

The pair, who own Orwells restaurant in in Shiplake Row, appeared once again on celebrity chef James Martin’s morning show on ITV.

They served seasonal pigeon dishes to fellow guests, French baker and chef Richard Bertinet and forager Alysia Vasey.

Ryan described the bird as “absolutely fantastic”. He said: “The secret with a good pigeon is to lubricate the meat, we want to get a bit of fat on there and that’s what the bone marrow is for.

“We are going to roast the bone marrow and cook the pigeon on a barbecue over a flame, nice and easy, and let it rest in duck fat.”

Martin joked. “So you have taken a pigeon and masqueraded it into other things.”

The bird was served with some pickled elderberry, homegrown tromboncino and pan-fried Scottish girolle mushrooms. Liam said: “Tromboncino is like a courgette and, as it gets bigger and the skin turns orange, it becomes more like a squash.

“You need to vertically grow them, so you need a bit of height to let them drop down, almost like a teardrop earring.”

The dish was garnished with Mexican marigold. Liam said: “This is so you have little aromatics, little flavours coming through. It’s a little appley, a bit florally, a bit like your nan’s perfume. It’s dead easy to grow. Pop it in your garden like chives and it comes up and it will eventually flower.” Ryan said it was important for the dish that the pigeon isn’t overcooked. He said: “The thing with pigeon is you want to be eating it quite rare to medium rare, you don’t want to be eating it too well done.”

The pair said in coming up with the recipe, as with all of their dishes, they like to use local ingredients. In this case, they wanted to serve the pigeon with food that it would have eaten or been surrounded by during its life.

Liam said: “That’s how we plan a dish, we see what the animals have been grazing on and look at what’s in the local area to get the best of everything.”

Martin described Orwells as set within a “gastronomic capital” with the food offering in Henley and neighbouring Marlow having “taken off.” Since opening Orwells in 2010 the restaurant has won numerous awards and has been included in the Michelin Guide.

Liam said: “I just can’t believe it’s almost 2025 and I look back and I think how did we start a restaurant so young? We had experience of running kitchens but never owning a business.” He then told Martin that for six months of this year, Ryan had been helping to run the front of the house, leaving him alone in the Kitchen. Liam said: “It’s just us two in the kitchen normally but Ryan has had a stint front of house so I was on my own. I enjoyed it for about a week, but it was too much work.” 

Ryan said: “The thing is, you bounce ideas off of each other and it’s just so much better.

Liam added: “The tasting menu, forr example, is great and it changes a lot, especially with the abundance of produce we can forage and grow and preserve. We do all of that. Even picking sloes to make your sloe gin, you have got to set aside at least two or three hours out of your day and that’s a lot of time when you are in a restaurant.

“But we think of that end product and when you put that time in and the effort, you are going to get a dish which hopefully everyone is going to enjoy”

You can watch the episode on ITV on demand.