Taste Maker: Daniel Smith

In this instalment of our Taste Maker series, learn more about award-winning Chef, Daniel Smith. Dan was The Observer’s Young Chef of the Year 2016 and has worked in some of the country’s top restaurants including several of Jason Atherton’s restaurants, before settling at The Clove Club for 5 years, where he was an integral part of the team that earned a Michelin star. Daniel and his wife Natasha are now the proud owners of Michelin-starred Fordwich Arms, located in the Kent town of Fordwich.

When designing a menu featuring exclusivley Nyetimber sparkling wines, what factors inspire your pairings across each course?

When pairing food with wine it is vital to consider every element. If one isn’t quite right the pairing simply won’t work and could have a negative impact on either the dish, the wine, or both.

I believe it is a balance of acidity that is most crucial when pairing food with sparkling wines like Nyetimber. If either the wine or food is too acidic, then it will not taste right. However in the same sense if you have for example a rich butter sauce paired with the right wine then both can complement each other.

Given the prestigious nature of Michelin stars, how do you balance the pursuit of culinary excellence with maintaining your restaurant’s unique identity and character?  

It is absolutely vital to always think of your own vision rather than ‘what is expected’. Identity and character come from cooking the food that you feel passionate about and think is the best it can be. The most important thing is taste, absolutely everything that is put on the plate must taste good and it’s about a perfect balance of flavours that work in harmony with each other for me.

What aspects of pairing food with sparkling wine do you find most intriguing or exciting?

To be totally honest pairing food with sparkling wine can be incredibly difficult to get correct, as a chef I think the balance of flavours is much harder to achieve with sparkling wine as you have much less of a range to work with, having said that I think the pairings can be far more exciting and that’s why I am excited to be working with Nyetimber.

What lessons have you learned from your time as an award-winning young chef that continue to shape your career today?

By far the most important thing is that the food has to come first. I think a lot of chefs get caught up in the idea of what they think food ‘should be’ rather than actually cooking what you enjoy and most importantly what is delicious. When creating dishes we ensure all members of the team taste each dish and give their opinion, this way it enables us to have a broad verdict which I think is so vital given the people that will be eating and paying for our food will all have different tastes so in doing this it gives us the best chance of pleasing the most amount of people which is the most important thing.

What do you see as the future of fine dining, and how do you envision the Fordwich Arms evolving in the coming years?

If you could cook for anybody, dead or alive who would it be?