The award-winning restaurateur who doesn't believe in charging for service
Every Thursday, our Money blog team interviews chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks and more. This week, we chat to Richard Johns, chef-owner of The Plough in Wombleton, North Yorkshire.
I have never believed in charging for service... We are certainly in the minority on this but do believe it is the customer's right to leave a service tip if they wish.
The simplest tip to be a better cook is... to constantly taste your food, seasoning with salt and pepper.
The one thing I hate that some customers do is... booking a table and not honouring the booking. This happens less nowadays, but it still rears its head every now and then.
The most overrated single food item is… fermented foods. I fully understand its origins, but it seems to be just a restaurant food fashion here in the UK.
The most annoying review I ever had was… from a person who had clearly never visited our restaurant, let alone dined with us! It happens sadly.
My favourite cheap place to eat where I live is... Mannion's of Helmsley. They offer a cracking full-cooked breakfast, which is done with care and skill. A great Monday morning spot after a busy weekend.
I have absolutely no issue with people ordering tap water... We often do the same when eating out.
The only rare time sharing is unacceptable might be... when a table of five orders one dessert and five spoons. That can be a bit much.
The best city in the world to eat in is... New York. A fantastic eating mecca. Something delicious for any budget, day or night.
I've cut costs in my restaurant by... literally turning off/powering down any equipment that is not in use. Other than fridges. Even turning off the kettle at the wall is now the done thing. A few years ago, this would not even have been a thought.
My cheap recipe is for creme brulee...
This dessert has been an almost permanent staple on our menu for the past 20 years - a very popular choice.
The idea here is to obtain a silky-smooth custard, using rich egg yolks only. Whole eggs can be used but the results are very different.
If using fresh vanilla pods, reserve the pods for other uses, as they have bags of flavour.
For the best results, you will need a gas blow torch. This is a very controlled way of caramelising sugar.
The recipe makes six creme brulee...
Ingredients:
500g double cream
2 x vanilla pods, seeds scraped (or two tsp of high-quality vanilla extract)
60g caster sugar
235g egg yolk (cartons of liquid egg yolk can be bought easily online)
Extra caster sugar for brulee
Method:
Preheat oven to 90°C.
Place all ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan, except the egg yolks.
Bring to a simmer, whisking constantly. Remove from heat, cover and leave for 30 minutes for vanilla to infuse.
Place pot back on a low heat and whisk in the egg yolks to combine and bring to a very gentle simmer. Do not boil, as you will have scrambled egg custard!
Pass the custard through a fine sieve into a jug.
Pour the custard into suitable ramekins, almost to the top.
Place the ramekins into the oven and bake for approximately twenty minutes.
Keep an eye on the custard, giving a ramekin a gentle shake after twenty minutes. You want the custard to have a gentle wobble in the centre. This will look almost undercooked but do not be deterred!
Remove the ramekins from the oven and allow to cool. Place in the fridge for at least six hours to set. (Egg carries on cooking in the residual heat, hence removing from oven before fully set.)
When ready to serve, remove ramekins from the fridge. Sprinkle a fine, even layer of caster sugar over each custard. Caramelise the sugar using a gas blow torch.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
30 minutes ago
- Times
Why the Scottish Football Museum is one of the world's best
May 1976, Scotland v England at Hampden Park. In the 49th minute, with the score 1-1, Joe Jordan rampages down the left wing and crosses to Kenny Dalglish. As a nation holds its breath, Dalglish shimmies past an England defender and fires a shot. To everyone's surprise, the normally reliable Ray Clemence lets the ball slip between his legs and trickle into the net. From Kirkwall to Kirkcudbright, Scots respond with the kind of collective roar usually reserved for the likes of Bannockburn. This seminal moment in sporting history is played endlessly in a video loop at the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden, which Live Football Tickets has just named the third best football museum in Europe. Bettered only by museums in Greece and Serbia, the Hampden museum was streets ahead of the National Football Museum in Manchester, which limped in at ninth. Another historic win for Scotland. For the full Hampden experience, the museum manager, Andy Kerr, leads hour-long tours behind the scenes, through players' and match officials' dressing rooms and into the tunnel leading to the pitch, followed by as long as visitors like in the museum. • Scottish Football Museum honours women's game The original Hampden was built in 1903, and three decades later a world record crowd of 149,415 crammed in to watch Scotland beat England 3-1. It was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a downsized modern stadium. The dressing rooms are smart and functional rather than luxurious, allowing players representing club or country to focus on what they are here for. But they are helped to feel at home with national and club emblems on the walls of their respective rooms. The atmospheric climax is walking through the tunnel towards the Hampden Roar, which must make a few hairs rise. I can only imagine the thrill. Every year two teams emerge hoping to win the oldest association football trophy in the world, the Scottish Cup, which has pride of place in a glass case here at the museum. It is a handsome trophy crafted by silversmiths in 1873 for 56 pounds, 7 shillings and 11 pence, now estimated to be worth an eye-watering £1 million. For this reason it never leaves the stadium. After being presented to the winning team and paraded in a victory lap, it is returned to the museum for safekeeping and the team is given a replica. The stars of the collection are undoubtedly the portraits of dozens of players, managers and personalities. Dalglish is prominent among them, along with Denis Law, 'Slim Jim' Baxter, Graeme Souness and Alex Ferguson. • Five of the best heritage museums in Scotland There are surprising names among lesser-known lights of the game, notably Robert Smyth McColl, who scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 victory over England in 1900. He became known as 'Toffee' Bob a year later when he founded a newsagent with his brother. There was also a licensed-to-kill secret agent by the name of James Bond, aka Sean Connery, who played for Bonnyrigg Rose juniors for a couple of seasons in the 1950s. 'Big Tam' is remembered for a fashionable brown corduroy jacket and an entourage of doe-eyed local girls, though he was offered a trial by the Manchester United manager Matt Busby, which he wisely declined for an acting career. A set of 1903 iron and wood turnstiles leads to a motley collection of historic football strips, medals, posters and clunky leather boots that look as if they were designed for coalminers. Speaking of which, the exhibition From Pit to Pitch: A Story of Coal Seams & Football Dreams, running until the end of the year, investigates the mining communities across central Scotland that incubated great footballers and managers, including Bill Shankly, Jock Stein and Busby. One exhibit brought back fond memories of my early career as a trainee sports reporter, showing a section of the old press box with a phone booth that adorned the roof of the old stadium. I still remember climbing a spiral iron staircase and the smell of an old wooden corridor leading to our eyrie overlooking the field of dreams and much of Glasgow, as far as Ben Lomond. The thunderous roar of the crowd still rings in my ears. Entry to the Scottish Football Museum is £8 for adults and £3 for children; entry plus stadium tour costs £16/£9 (
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
King sharing his cancer diagnosis ‘has helped men open up', says BEM recipient
A woman who has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for her work with the cancer charity she co-founded after her twin brother died of the illness has said the King being open about his diagnosis 'has been really good for men'. Jenna Speirs, and her parents Caroline and Duncan Speirs, have each been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for the work they have done with the charity they started after Jenna's twin brother Calum died of cancer aged 12. It is the first time three family members have been named in the same honours list. The trio, from the Isle of Bute, started the charity Calum's Cabin after Calum, who had an inoperable brain tumour, died. On being named in the King's Birthday Honours, Jenna, a therapeutic radiographer, said Charles sharing his cancer diagnosis has helped men open up. 'Him being so open about his cancer journey has been really good for men in particular,' Jenna said. 'You see a lot of men sitting alone in the waiting rooms, but now they are chatting more.' During his time in hospital before his death in 2007, Calum told his sister Jenna, now 30, he wanted to start something called 'Calum's Caravan' for children with cancer to spend time away with their families. 'We were very fortunate growing up going on holidays and living on the Isle of Bute, but lots of children in hospital never got to see the outdoors or the sea,' Jenna said. 'It was his idea. He wanted people to be able to take time away.' The Speirs family had planned to start the charity when he recovered from his illness. 'Unfortunately, that wasn't to be,' Jenna said. 'So we started fundraising at his funeral.' Two years later, Calum's Cabin had acquired its first holiday home for families of children being treated for cancer in Scotland to use. Since then, thousands of families have been helped by the charity, which now has several holiday homes as well as flats in Glasgow for hospital patients and their families to stay in if they live further afield. Caroline, 59, Duncan, 63, and Jenna said receiving the medals was 'very special' and dedicated them to Calum. Jenna paid tribute to her brother, saying: 'Calum was the funniest person you'd ever meet. He liked joking with the nurses and he was extremely caring. 'This is not for the three of us,' Caroline said. 'It's for the four of us.'
The Sun
6 hours ago
- The Sun
I stayed at the English beach holiday park following its £15million makeover with a massive waterpark and soft-play
'WOW, this is the best house ever,' scream my two kids. While their reactions slightly rile me — having just decorated both their bedrooms back home — I can see where they are coming from. 4 4 For starters, our eight-man Platinum lodge at Unity Beach in Somerset has a hot tub — and it comes complete with undisturbed views of Brean's windswept coastline and a clear sky at night. Everything inside is sleek and stylish, with a statement electric fireplace in the centre and Scandi-style wooden furniture that makes the place look more like a fancy prize draw house than a holiday park lodge. I was staying there with my partner Bianca and two little ones, Frank, six, and Pearl, four. The fun-packed resort has recently been redeveloped as part of a £15million 'Comes Alive in 25' campaign and was reopened only last month, backed by The One Show host Alex Jones. The presenter said: 'There's a misconception that British seaside parks are outdated. Unity Beach proves that's no longer true.' I can't argue with her. Even though there was so much to do at the 240-acre resort, we could easily have spent a few hours relaxing in our new home. As well as a decking area with hot tub, it included a spacious lounge with a giant TV (as well as televisions in every bedroom), a fully-fitted kitchen, two double bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, plus two more twin rooms. The lodges are really close to most of the activities and restaurants, too. These include the new Wonky Donkey, which serves brekkie and pub grub such as scampi, lasagne and burgers, and the Sports Cafe, where kids can play arcade favourites and cutting-edge VR games in between bites of pizza, while adults watch live sport on the large screens. There's also the revamped Pavilion Theatre, where guests can tuck into wings, loaded fries and kid-sized lighter bites all while watching live game shows and tribute acts. And with a proper kitchen in our lodge, we could always mix it up with a takeaway from the on-site chippy or Chinese. Then there's the retro-decorated RJ's, which offers American diner-style classics such as pizzas, wings and build-your-own burgers. And with a proper kitchen in our lodge, we could always mix it up with a takeaway from the on-site chippy or Chinese. When we weren't sampling all the food, we had buckets of fun at Splash Waterpark, only 50 yards or so from our lodge. It costs extra to visit (from £3.25pp) but it's well worth it, with a kids' pool, play areas and plenty of slides. Ninja Zone The pre-booked 90-minute pool sessions were just enough for our two, although bigger kids, who can go on all the flumes, might want to stay longer. Despite tearing around the pool for an hour and a half, Frank and Pearl couldn't wait to go straight to Brean Play indoor soft play afterwards. If one thing's guaranteed to tire them out, it's soft play. The area includes the Ninja Zone, with a challenging obstacle course for older kids, and a state-of-the-art ball court with an interactive screen that lets kids play all manner of games. If that's not enough, there's also the Brean Theme Park, which was again just yards from our lodge. And I could see why our kids were so desperate to go. The park has a great mix of rides for kids of all ages as well as adults. Thankfully, Bianca was happy to take Frank on the scarier rollercoasters while I made sure Pearl was OK on the carousels. You'll have to pay extra for entry, but Unity guests get discounted wristbands meaning it won't end up costing a fortune. Unity is not all about the kids, though. Adults can have their fair share of fun at the 18-hole golf course. Whatever you end up doing, there's a good chance you'll finish your day in the hot tub, soaking up all the memories. Or they might want to try their hand at new must-play sport padel, with Unity being home to Somerset's only two courts. We barely had enough time to try everything within the resort, let alone to venture out. 4 4 But for those keen to explore the area, Weston-super-Mare, Burnham pier and Cheddar Gorge are all nearby. However, try to make it back in time for the evening entertainment, which includes discos and parties for the little ones, games shows and entertainers. Whatever you end up doing, there's a good chance you'll finish your day in the hot tub, soaking up all the memories. And you'll certainly be grateful for those comfy beds, too.
