In January of this year, The Unruly Pig in Suffolk took first place at the highly coveted Estrella Damm UK Top 50 Gastropubs Awards. Owned by Brendan Padfield who opened the pub nine years ago, the kitchen is led by chef-patron Dave Wall and his head chef Karl Green – otherwise known as ‘the dynamic duo’.
Dave was born in Essex but was brought up in Ipswich and attended the town’s Copleston High School. Before joining The Unruly Pig, he worked for Gordon Ramsay at both Claridge’s and The Boxwood Café. He then cooked at the iconic London restaurant Bibendum before returning home to Suffolk to cook at Le Talbooth in Dedham. He has been head chef at The Unruly Pig from its opening in April 2015 and is now chef patron after becoming a partner in the business.
A former lawyer, owner Brendan’s ambition for The Unruly Pig was always to create a great pub that he himself would want to dine in, where the food, service and wine combine to offer a memorable experience you want and can repeatedly return to.
The food Dave and Karl create at The Unruly Pig stays true to its British heritage, taking the best of what is in season and adding an Italian twist – an homage to Brendan’s favourite place to holiday. The Unruly Pig’s Suffolk location means that it can take the best local produce from both land and sea – with 70 per cent of it sourced within thirty-nine miles of the pub – and present it across an a la carte, set lunch and tasting menu – as well as a Sunday roast.
We sat down with Dave to find out a little more about his culinary background, his signature dish and what his future plans entail.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, including where you are today, professionally, and what got you here?
I’ve been cooking for around 20 years and have spent the last nine years at The Unruly Pig. It was my first head chef position and I opened it up with Brendan, the owner (a former lawyer). I am now Brendan’s business partner and chef-patron.
What or who inspired you to become a chef?
I spent a few years travelling the world in my late teens and early twenties, and originally started working in kitchens as a pot-washer to earn money for hostel fees and beer. I got hooked on the fast-paced environment of the kitchen and decided it was the career for me.
Who has been your biggest influence to get you to where you are today?
When travelling most of my chef jobs had been high-volume mid-market operations. After returning to the UK I wanted to put my head down and gain more experience cooking from scratch. I found a commis-chef job in a rural pub that was owned by farmers, with an adjoining kitchen garden where we grew our own veg and all of the meat came from the adjacent farm. The chef was named Carl Shillingford and he had an extensive CV working at three Michelin star restaurants. We made absolutely everything from scratch and he taught me so much about the fundamentals of cooking.
Perhaps the biggest influence overall though must be from Brendan, whose dogged persistence and drive, attention to detail and business acumen has truly carved out the chef I am today, taking me from a half-respectable cook who had limited management experience beyond running a dinner service and teaching me so much about the wider aspects of running a successful operation and all of the financial detail, man-management, HR, PR and other attributes that are so essential and crucial to making the grade.
What’s your signature dish?
For a large part I generally prefer to keep the menu fluid and moving so try not to have a ‘signature dish’ as such – but around eight years ago I put on an ‘nduja and taleggio arancini as a nibble and its continuous popularity has cemented it into the offering ever since – the only dish that has been an ever-present without any alterations. It has a spicy kick from the ‘nduja, an unctuous ooze of the melted taleggio cheese encased into a crispy little fried bite, lashed with grated three-year aged parmesan for a further kick of salinity. People love them!
What are the most important considerations when crafting your menu?
Every dish starts with seasonality – we look at what the best ingredients Mother Nature will have to offer. We then look to showcase those ingredients with harmonious combinations that deliver pure and clean flavour.
Do your personal preferences influence the menu at all?
I’m sure they might subliminally – naturally we must be drawn to cooking dishes that we find enjoyable! But I try to cook for the guest and think about what they might like to eat primarily.
How would you describe your cooking style?
I’d like to think it is clean and refined, but full of flavour. We like to have a slight Italian lean to our menu, so often I’ll read old Italian cookbooks and take traditional dishes but put our own spin on things with perhaps a more modern take.
Do you have a favourite time of year or set of ingredients that you look forward to working with?
I adore spring – whilst I love winter cooking with the braises and sauces, I always get excited at the end of winter when the forced rhubarb and blood oranges come because I know just round the corner we’ll be seeing wild garlic, morels, then asparagus and the first of the green vegetables. It’s so nice after months of roots and tubers to start cooking with freshness and vibrancy.
What is your favourite ingredient to create with?
I love making sauces – taking the humble beginnings of bones and trim and crafting the most delicious end result. True skill and cooking, a spark of magic.
What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef?
I can’t imagine me doing anything for a career other than cooking, but once I hang up the apron I like the idea of retiring to the mountains and keeping myself busy with part time jobs on the ski hill in the winter and the golf course in the summer.
What is your favourite dish to cook at home?
I love making a hearty pie from scratch – braising the filling, making the pastry. It’s always a crowd pleaser and is very satisfying to make.
When are you happiest?
Spending time with my family and seeing my son Dexter and daughter Ruby face and overcome a challenge. I want to raise them to take on difficult tasks with bravery and gusto – for me I hope this will lead to them living successful, rewarding and fulfilling lives and I hope that brings them happiness.
What is your favourite piece of kitchen equipment?
I love a good pan. Well-made and solid craftsmanship – cast iron, copper, stainless, I love them all and think they’re so critical to enhancing flavour in cooking. The French are undoubtedly the champions of making great pans.
When you’re not in the kitchen where can you be found?
Either spending time with my family or in the gym. I took up Olympic weightlifting a few years ago and I’m well and truly hooked – a combination of strength and technique that is impossibly difficult, but I love a challenge!
What’s your favourite takeaway or comfort food?
Can’t beat a curry!
Where is your favourite place to dine?
This may sound incredibly biased but I love eating at The Unruly Pig! I don’t do it very often but it always makes me proud when I do so and I love seeing our fantastic front-of-house team doing their thing.
Other than that I’ve had two fantastic meals in the last year at Meadowsweet in Holt, Norfolk and Restaurant 22 in Cambridge. I think they were level-pegging for my two favourite meals ever and I’ll definitely be revisiting both when I can.
What do you think is the most over-hyped food trend?
I couldn’t possibly say, they come and they go, but one thing I certainly never bought into (which fortunately you see less and less now) is flowers on food. I’m quite sure that some chefs were able to genuinely use them to great culinary effect and enhance their dishes with them, but I can’t get my head around putting them on dishes just to ‘look good’ if they don’t improve the flavour or eating of the dish.
What differences do you find working with local produce as opposed to non-local produce in terms of what you can create and flavour?
Sometimes ultimately an ingredient needs a certain climate and cultivating conditions in order to be great. The best fruit needs to be grown in the right conditions and ultimately they can often be non-local. But the best benefit that is possible from using local foods, beyond the lower food-mile and sustainable aspect, is how fresh ingredients can be. Nothing beats a freshly-laid egg or picked herb.
How do you go about menu planning? What’s the process from picking the ingredients to getting them fresh into the kitchen and into dishes?
We start coming up with the ideas working from the seasons – often the most seasonally affected being vegetables, then look at what we can reliably get hold of in the right quantities and quality from our suppliers. Then we consider the combinations and what might work well together, coming up with a concept for a dish. We then test and develop the dish, firstly by cooking the dish and tasting it in the kitchen. Sometimes it just works straight away, and sometimes it doesn’t come together as you envisaged it and you have to rework a certain element or go back to the drawing board and come up with a different dish altogether.
Once we have tested a few versions and are happy with the dish and are confident that we will be able to execute it in our busy and demanding services, then we will present it to Brendan and our general manager Jackie to taste it. If they like it and are happy then we cook it for the staff to taste and be trained on, we train the kitchen team on how to cook it, cost the dish and create a spec sheet with the recipes and allergen info before finally signing off for introducing to the menu.
How would you describe the food you create at The Unruly Pig to someone who’s never experienced your kind of food?
Food with a slight Italian influence, utilising incredible ingredients showcased to sing with flavour!
What’s your favourite flavour combination?
Wild garlic and morels – nature’s perfect harmony!
What is the USP of your restaurant?
Refined, tasty food cooked in relaxed settings but delivered with great service.
What do your future plans entail?
I still love The Unruly Pig and want to keep putting all of my focus into trying to make it as great as we possibly can – but one day perhaps we might open a sibling restaurant!
Factbox
Address: Orford Rd, Bromeswell, Woodbridge IP12 2PU
Phone: 01394 460310
Website: theunrulypig.co.uk
All imagery credit: The Unruly Pig
