Life With Ed Wilson
Life With Ed Wilson
Brawn, one of the nicest restaurants in all of London, sits on the corner of Columbia Road and Ravenscroft St in Hackney. In the kitchen, Ed Wilson and his team create small miracles in an extremely chill fashion, and we’ve had some tremendous nights there already. (Afterwards, make sure to go to Royal Oak, a great pub just one block down the road). Here, we talk to Ed about traditional English cuisine, East London kebab and stupid food trends.
Text by Oliver Bodh Larsen, Photos by Ellis Scott
What's your favourite meal to cook when it gets a little colder outside?
When it's cold outside, I think it’s not necessarily a favourite meal, but I think it's more a style of cooking. It’s more about slow cooking, going from the summer where it’s very much about fresh produce and you know lovely shiny, summery vegetables and fruit and beautiful fish and just sort of cooking quickly. Whether you're grilling in the the garden or in the restaurant. You’re serving lots of things raw. As soon as the autumn kicks in, you want that sort of warm hug from things that take a bit longer to cook.
I feel like the English cuisine is very well suited for the colder weather.
Haha, yeah, I think so. I mean, historically, the old English cooking and certainly at this time of year, game is very big within restaurants. From game birds to venison to things like hare and rabbit. We do a hare ragù, for example, which we serve with a pappardelle pasta. It has a very deep taste, you know, it’s very rich meat. And usually, we keep the blood from the hare to thicken the sauce at the end to give it a sort of silky finish.
Fecking hell — sounds good. Ed, what's the first dish you can remember?
My grandmother used to do a sort of minced beef dish. Very English style, rather than like a bolognese ragù. Hers was minced beef cooked with onions and beef stock and carrots.
Was she a good cook?
She was a very good home cook. I grew up in the north of England, and she did things almost on a weekly basis. Every Wednesday, for example, she would cook tripe and onions.
Sorry, what’s that? Tripe and onions?
Tripe is the beef intestines––the actual stomach. My grandmother went to the tripe dresser in the market every Wednesday, got the tripe and slow-cooked it with onions. She served it with caper sauce, which I hated, but it’s a very traditional sort of dish. Now, it’s become one of my favourite things to eat. I think there’s a nostalgic element to it.
Ed, why did you want to become a chef initially?
Interestingly, I knew from a very early age. I just decided that I wanted to be a cook. I was literally 6 or 7, I think. My dad worked in television, made sort of boring educational things, but on Channel 4 there was a show where kids could come on and cook, and my dad asked me if I wanted to go on it. I was about 8, I went on there and I made sweet and sour pork. Pretty random thing to make when you’re 8.
What’s the greatest meal you’ve ever had?
The greatest meal––have I have it yet? I think in terms of memorable meals, there are certain places that I go to which I call my happy places in the world. One of them is a restaurant called La Cova Fumada in Barcelona. It’s literally a little café in the La Barceloneta area. They open in the morning, and they just do everything. There’s two old women in the kitchen. It’s a wonderful sort of food that hasn’t changed for 60 years. I’d always say Chez Panisse in San Francisco, but that’s more of a pilgrimage.
What’s your go-to food when hungover?
It’d probably say Turkish. We have a very big Turkish community in East London. Very good kebabs. Grilled meats, lamb, chopped salads. Always a good way to restore yourself.
If you could erase one food trend from the face of the Earth, which would it be?
Square plates. I’ve never understood a square plate or what it does for food. There’s no symmetry in a square plate. Oh, and truffle flavouring and it’s use. Chips, crisps, cheese, popcorn and the rest. Synthetic and misleading.
What’s your favourite song to put on post-service?
Willie Colón Set Fire to Me.
One last thing, Ed. Would you mind sharing some hot tips for restaurants/pubs in London/East London?
Polentina is wonderful. Some of the best cooking outside of Italy you can find and it’s located in a textile factory on an industrial estate in Bow. Forno is my favourite bakery that doubles up as a pizza spot with music and wine at the weekends called Brillo.
