It’s also a testament to how quickly Kirk Westaway has come into his own as one of the island’s best chefs
It wasn’t too long ago when the local culinary scene was abuzz with great expectations surrounding a young but hugely talented chef from the UK. It was 2015 and Kirk Westaway had taken over lauded French maestro Julien Royer (who left to open Odette but remains his friend and mentor) as the executive chef at one of the island’s hottest dining destination for modern European gastronomy.
Jaan was already a celebrated gastronomic platform with a reputation for handpicking exceptional culinary talents. So, there were huge shoes to fill. Not to mention questions about the future of the often-ingenious style of cuisine fans of the restaurant have come to expect to be answered. But Westaway never let the pressures distract him from the personal journey he needed to take.
He does, nonetheless, share a common passion with Royer, one that involves a vested interest in quality produce and their natural flavours, which also explains the matured restraint he’s always shown when it came to creating new dishes.
And though I had wondered if it would have been easier to play the British card from the start, because there weren’t many restaurants proffering a similar style of cuisine, I also questioned the risks involved and concluded that he simply needed time to evolve.
As it turns out, Westaway’s latest and aptly dubbed “Reinventing British” menu is at once a playful nod to British foods and a studied expression of the season’s best, though not how a typical Brit would see it.
Granted, the range of snacks that preceded the main menu did flaunt flagrant retellings of classic British nosh—think, “fish and chips”, “chicken curry” and cheddar cheese pancakes. But the experience is far from tawdry. The last, for example, stars a light, beautifully rounded and slightly nutty cheddar that’s produced close to Westaway’s family home in Devon, cradled in a delicate buckwheat pancake sphere.