By Carol Godsmark
Number 8 Kings Road is known for its style, the former bank in Southsea becoming a restaurant nearly two years ago. Out went the banking desks and in its place distinctive cascading chandeliers from Hong Kong set the tone in this two tier restaurant. Only the very handsome safe, a large, solid metal one which might have been blown up in films like Noel Coward’s The Italian Job, remains. Instead of bank notes and gold it contains liquid gold, well-sourced bottles of wine.
James Harrison follows in the footsteps of Karl Byron, the Portsmouth born and South Downs College-bred chef taking over the kitchens from Karl in September. James has the same goals as Karl – well-sourced ingredients cooked in classical Franco-British style with pleasing presentation also at the forefront – the a la carte menu now also including a brunch lunch served from 10 am. He and his four chefs are also responsible for the set menus for the Friday music evenings and Sunday lunch. Let’s push back the heavy, impressive black bank doors to meet James Harrison, a tall, imposing figure in chef’s whites. At 20 (he will be 21 this month) he is the youngest head chef in the area in charge of a fine dining restaurant.
Q & A
Why did you choose cooking as a career, James? There was always cheffing in my family, my mother, Alison Mayfield and stepfather Brian Mayfield, were contract caterers. Their passion, running restaurants like the Plantation in Port Solent and at Marwell Zoo, rubbed off on me. I was always part of their world, peeling vegetables from an early age. But strangely, I never saw any of the zoo animals as I was always working!
Were you not discouraged from cooking? No, this was what I really wanted to do but some people would say to me ‘you won’t have a life.’ I worked even when I was at South Downs College, either with my parents or at the Solent Hotel, Portsmouth. I started there under Peter Williams, the head chef, during my third year of college and ended up working there full time.
Did you like hotel catering or did you wish to work in a restaurant? The hotel catered for a lot of weddings and large functions as well as doing an a la carte restaurant menu and it became quite monotonous plating up over 200 identical plates of food in corridors! I really wanted more hands-on cooking, doing fine dining in restaurants. I also worked at Wanted in Southsea for a year but it was quite simple food, my aim really was to be part of a team in either of the two top class fine dining restaurants in the city, Bistro Montparnasse or 8 Kings Road.
What was it like, working in a kitchen producing more quality-led food presented to a higher standard? I joined Karl and the other chefs in the summer of 2007 and in a year I had learnt a ridiculous amount from Karl and the others. It was the hardest year of my life as all the cooking was from scratch and I had never done cooking like this before. I was put on pastry and had a really good, close relationship with Karl who had worked in France and in some of the best places in London.
When did you take over the kitchens and did you think you could do, even at 20? Karl decided to move on and, as I had worked up the ladder from chef de partie to sous chef, the owners felt I was ready to take on the job as head chef. As they believed in me, I felt I could handle it as I had learnt so much from Karl and had taken over when he was having days off. Karl believed in me too. ‘If you work hard, you will get where you want to be,’ he used to tell me.
Who works with you in the kitchen? As we have a busy 85 cover restaurant, we have five chefs in total including two chefs from France and one from Portsmouth. Our pastry chef is from the Czech Republic.
Do they respect you despite your young age? It’s very unusual to have a head chef who is younger than his other chefs but they do respect me and we do get along really well. We make everything from scratch including the bread. The last thing we do at night before closing down the kitchen is to put ingredients together to make the bread fermentation. I introduced our own bread-making when I took over and I estimate it saves us around £6,000 a year, which is very satisfying.
What are some of the dishes you have introduced onto the menu? The menu changes seasonally. We do a genuine French onion soup, foie gras with duck’s liver, honeycomb,truffles and brioche or a steak tartare with quails’ eggs or walnut crusted goat’s cheese with poached pear, but scallops with black pudding and hollandaise sauce remain popular as does the beef fillet with a peppercorn sauce and lemon tart or our homemade ice creams or sorbets which are served in a iced floral bowl. They are pretty stunning.
Do you source your food locally? Munneries from West Wittering can always get salads and vegetables for us which are different like shisho sald leaves which we serve with the wild mushroom risotto. Crab comes from Selsey but I prefer the pork form Norfolk and German beef which is marbled like the Japanese beef. We also choose cheeses like Tunworth from Hamsphire from a company called Turners as they can source the best international cheeses including local ones. I’ve introduced venison on the menu and some days it’s the choice of over a third of main courses.
Why do you like your job and what do you think you’ll do in the future? I don’t do catering for the money but really enjoy coming in to work every day. It’s a big satisfaction to have customer appreciation. When I go upstairs [the kitchen is below stairs] and talk to people about what they’ve eaten and if they’ve enjoyed it, that’s what pleases me. I’ve always said that I’d like my own restaurant by 26 or 28 but I’d also like to work in France as the kitchens are run at a faster pace.
The experience Converted banks and other buildings with an edge or history to them have an advantage when it comes to atmosphere, 8 Kings Road is no exception. Lofty in the extreme, the feel is very much part of what makes this restaurant tick, the black grand piano, put to use on Fridays, helping to set the scene. The brunch menu, from 10am until 3 pm, and introduced by James Harrison, eases you into the style of food gently with eggs Florentine or croquet Monsieur vying with Eggs Benedict, a crumpet stacked with spinach, ham, poached egg and hollandaise sauce. Lunch offers fishcakes; honey glazed pork with bubble and squeak; home made ice creams or wild berry cheesecake. The a la carte may win you over with calves’ liver, wild sea bass with a vanilla foam or gilthead bream with a lemon and parsley sauce. A recently sampled scallops with black pudding and spicy hollandaise, venison with a juniper berry jus and chocolate tart with poached pear showed that this chef, although not quite in the vanguard of ace cooking, is getting closer to his goal. He can cook a mean venison, the tender meat with an accomplished jus, one of the more memorable dishes the restaurant has to offer.
8 Kings Road, Southsea 0845 130 3234.