London’s posh pies and puddings at CUT at 45 Park Lane
We head into the kitchen and speak to pie master Calum Franklin and Executive Chef at CUT at 45 Park Lane, Elliott Grover to discuss pies and pudding.
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00:00I mean, it's got to be one of the most exciting collaborations this year in London for sure.
00:04Callum Franklin obviously isn't in London at the moment, and I asked him to come here.
00:11I was sort of unsure that he would because obviously he opened a public house in Paris,
00:16and we've been good friends for a long time now from our Caprice Holdings days.
00:19And he said yeah, he'd love to come over, work with Wolfgang, myself, and yeah, created
00:25some of the most unbelievable, iconic British pies, which are Callum Franklin.
00:31So in 2014, I opened a restaurant called Holborn Dining Room at the Rosewood Hotel.
00:39And there, in 2018, I opened another kitchen attached to the restaurant called the Pie
00:46Room.
00:47That building was 120 years old, and in the basement, it'd been lots of different things
00:53over the years.
00:55And one day, I found a pie tin called a corset mold, which is a corset mold, so it looks
01:00like a lady's corset, right?
01:02Three pieces with keys, and I knew what it was, but I didn't know the technique for making
01:08it.
01:09So I took it to my sous chef, very experienced guy, and I said, David, have you ever used
01:14one of these before?
01:15And he said, I don't know how to use it.
01:16So I asked the rest of my kitchen, which is about 35 chefs, has anyone ever done this?
01:22And no one had ever done it.
01:23So for me, I was like, man, this is part of British food history that we are forgetting
01:30as a kitchen.
01:31So just for us, I want to learn it, right?
01:35So we started this little journey.
01:37Then I realized, actually, if we kind of like, if I can train my whole brigade to do these
01:43things, they'll go off and they'll train other people in the future.
01:48So it's maintaining part of our food culture that's potentially being forgotten.
01:53And really, that's where pie making all began for me.
01:59There's so much I love about it, and it's very hard for me to describe it until you
02:03see it.
02:04Honestly, the beef wellington I saw yesterday, I got emotional.
02:07I mean, you look at the detail of this pie, it's this beautiful layers of potato cooked
02:13in cream, rosemary, garlic, loads of cheese, caramelized onions, and then it's a piece
02:20of art.
02:21I mean, and then you've got the Austrian apple strudel with marzipan ice cream.
02:27Just unreal.
02:28Jelly and ice cream.
02:29I mean, when I heard it, I was like, jelly and ice cream, really, 45 part lane?
02:34And yeah, it's just, it's like an ice cream sandwich, a small bit of jelly inside the
02:39ice cream, which is a nice little surprise.
02:41And then you've got this beautiful dome of jelly on top with a little bit of gold leaf
02:46and some beautiful British raspberries.
02:47It's sensational.
02:48To get your space now, so it's going until this Saturday, the 21st of September, so get
02:54booking.