The Lowdown: Chef Alun Sperring of The Chilli Pickle

What is your earliest food memory?
My mom was a functional cook. She was working jobs and busy fostering extra kids, but she used to make beautiful Welsh cakes that we always ate hot with melting salty butter. My mom was Welsh, so hence the Welsh cakes.

What’s your favourite comfort food?
A spicy broth made with some gnarly meat cooked in a pressure cooker. I use oxtail, shoulder, short rib, or trotters; just something that you end up with a lot of gelatin and stickiness that adds to the richness of the broth. I cook it with things like garam masala, cumin, cinnamon, Indian bay leaves, and green and black cardamom. You can turn it into a thin curry or even use it for a thicker curry. It might be more Vietnamese-based or something a bit more Southeast Asian, and then it would be different aramats.

Are you a coffee or tea person and how do you take it?
Coffee is three double espressos at work, then I’m done for the day. We use Roasted coffee in Henfield and have done for years. Tea is green tea or rose tea. I don’t drink black tea at all; I get my caffeine fix with my coffee.

If you weren’t a chef, what would you be?
I decided I wanted to be a chef when I was 14, which is over 40 years ago. Even before that, I wanted to travel the world, so I basically travelled the world as a chef. But if I weren’t a chef, then it probably would be something to do with travel and travelling. Not working in Tui in North Street, but adventures in the Himalayas or something like that.

What’s the best thing about being a chef and restaurateur?
It sounds a bit cheesy, but I love feeding people and making them happy. I also really love food; it’s such a big part of my life, it’s such a vocation. If I’m not feeding people at the restaurant, I’m feeding people at home. Then there’s the people, all the amazing staff, customers and industry folk that we’ve met over the years; it’s created some great memories, and I’ve made many friends for life.

What’s the worst thing about being a chef and a restaurateur?
You work when others play, although we’ve got an amazing team now, so there’s no longer a need to work twenty-four-seven. The other thing is that the government never really help the industry. In Europe, most countries tax hospitality at a much lower rate, which means that businesses can give back through reinvestment and employment. The amount of restaurants that fold and therefore default on paying VAT in the UK is a depressing figure. It would be a very different outcome if the industry were given the respect it deserved.

Who do you most admire in hospitality?
In the Indian cuisine world, I’d have to say Vivek Singh. I did a stint at his restaurant The Cinnamon Club, about 22 years ago. For me, that was the catalyst for my passion for India, and since then, it’s been an endless adventure.

I also have to mention Dawn. Later this year, The Chilli Pickle is 18, which is amazing for us. Dawn is a business partner, wife and a mom for our boys, Stanley and Fletcher, and she’s been an inspiration and a cellmate throughout.

What’s the next restaurant on your hit list?
We just went up recently to London and tried Lucky Khao at the new Soho site, which was great. We really want to go to Montreal for a gastro holiday. Joe Beef has been on the bucket list for ages. That kind of Canadian/Parisian way they eat is a real gastronomic experience that we’ve been looking forward to for years, so that won’t be too far away.

What is your go-to breakfast?
An ice bath and something spicy. I love a South Indian breakfast like dosa vada, which is really fresh. At the moment, on the main menu at the restaurant, we’ve got rasam and lentil doughnuts, so I’m going in and eating them two or three times a week. It’s a really spicy tomato broth with crispy lentil doughnuts, just a nice fresh start to the day. Our favourite breakfast when we were in Lahore in Pakistan, was paya, which is a goat’s trotter soup. Quite often, I have yesterday’s curry for breakfast, I can’t get enough of it, I guess.

What in your opinion is the best food destination in the world?
I’ve got two answers to that. The first is, of course, India. I can go on and on about it; the diversity of India is such an adventure. Travel is such a part of The Chilli Pickle. In two years we’ve been to Sri Lanka, India twice and Pakistan and really getting amongst it. This year, we’re planning on hopefully going to India for a month and just being a bit more chilled with it, and going to markets and cooking.

But then, second to that is Singapore. I love all Asian food full stop, and the best micro-melting pot for that is Singapore. There’s Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean food; it’s a one-stop shop, and so much of it is really reasonably priced as well.

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten in a restaurant recently?
Pot-au-feu at The French House in London, that was delicious. It’s just so nice as well. It’s a small menu; we had steak tartare and chips, calf’s brains in black butter, a nice bottle of Claret and cheese. A nice old school lunch.

It’s your birthday, how are you going to celebrate food and drink wise?
If we’re doing one of our trips, it’s normally a lunch-dinner-lunch affair. We mix it up with Indian, Asian and European. It always kicks off with a few cocktails, a decent bottle of red and finishes with Chartreuse, Fernet-Branca or Armagnac.

Alun Sperring is chef/patron of The Chilli Pickle

The details
The Chilli Pickle
6-8 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, BN1 1HB01273 442893; thechillipickle.com‍