‘Good fish smells of the sea on a hot stone’: Nathan Outlaw on simple seafood cooking

<p>More than two decades after winning his first Michelin star, the Cornwall-based chef explains why unfancy food is best – and shares his recipe for steamed brill with pea, shallot and cider stew</p><p>It’s 23 years since Nathan Outlaw opened the Black Pig in Rock, Cornwall, when he was 25 years old. It was a long shot that everyone told him not to take – he already had a great job at the Vineyard in Stockcross, Berkshire; his wife, Rachel, was eight-and-a-half months pregnant; and he’d won a couple of prestigious young chef awards. But he wanted a place of his own; a simple menu, “bistro cooking,” he says. “That’s why I became a chef. I loved cooking, my dad’s a good canteen chef, he worked in a big paper mill in Kent, cooking for workers. I loved the physical aspect, standing up doing something. I loved the way there’s a lot of team work. I didn’t know anything about Michelin stars or being famous.” But he got his first Michelin star anyway, the year after he opened.</p><p>After that, he was a name, and it was fine dining and TV specials for many years – two eponymous restaurants in the St Enodoc hotel in Rock, the Great British Menu and Saturday Kitchen on TV, and he kept a foothold in Mayfair with Outlaw’s at the Capital in the 00s. He’s a calm cook, never big on the fireworks – “My mum always said to me: ‘you can’t be the one that throws your weight around, you’re too big’” – which is the right temperament for the food he pioneered during these tasting menu years.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jun/28/good-fish-nathan-outlaw-simple-seafood-cooking-steamed-brill-recipe">Continue reading...</a>