“We have worked very hard to create a really natural local cuisine. It’s a recipe book that focuses on flavour, but also has an environmental vision. Over the years we have managed to create something and we have evolved, we have become more refined, we have learnt as a unit, as a team. On the path that it has followed, L’Enclume has won three Michelin stars, a dream come true. We´re happy to have got here. They have been 20 years of inspiration”, Rogan said. 

Near his L’Enclume restaurant is the farm that provides the ingredients for his cooking and this is one of the cornerstones that his philosophy is based on. It is ecological and here he grows vegetables, herbs, flowers and raises cows, chickens and pigs. “I realised that nature requires agriculture without pesticides or chemicals. This is the future”, the chef explains. On stage, Simon prepared, together with his head chef, a dish based on Tunworth cheese, local plum jam, hazelnuts and buckwheat confit. “It’s a dish that I really like. It’s a transition between sweet and savoury and provides a mixture of really interesting flavours -sweet, sour, acidic. It’s also a mixture of temperatures because the cheese is treated with liquid nitrogen so that it’s really cold. We’ve been making it for many years and it changes depending on the herbs that the season offers us. This cheese reflects British identity really well”.

As the Englishman carried out each step of the recipe, he spoke about the different projects that he has. He currently has a restaurant in London and three in Hong Kong, where he says that there are many ecological farms. In all of them, the same philosophy prevails: sustainability and ecology.

Rogan says that the principle of sustainability is not only applicable to the cooking at his restaurant but also to its other aspects. “We have to take care of ourselves, our people, our workplace, and respect other people’s opinions. Our sector has always had a bad reputation, but we are trying to change things from the inside. We are also reducing the hours that we work. At L’Enclume, our team has two consecutive days off and this means that they come back refreshed with renewed energy to work. The aim is eventually to have only three and half working days. We need to look after the staff because otherwise, what are we going to do in the future?”. 

Another aspect that he also stresses is Zero Waste. “We use various preservation methods to make the most of food, and we are now working to make our own compost and give back to the land what it gives to us”.

He closes with an affirmation: “In the hospitality industry we have to work hard to take good care of all this. As a business, we must do everything we possibly can to reduce our environmental impact, to mark the difference, and to share knowledge. This will enable us to know where certain foodstuffs come from, how to look after them, how to preserve them and how to make the most of them…”.