Jenny Conlon meets well-known chef and TV personality Paul Merrett and his business partner Greg Bellamy to chat about their growing gastropub ventures
Just a stone’s throw from Fulham Broadway is The Malt House, a gastropub renowned for its handsome building and award-winning food. Proprietors, Paul Merrett and Greg Bellamy, have established the holy grail – a gastropub with a delicious menu that retains its pub atmosphere and heritage. I met with Paul and Greg to find out how they did it.
Firstly, how Paul began his impressive career as a chef. “Well, to be honest, I failed everything at school and my mum said ‘You’re going to have to learn to cook otherwise you’re not going to get a job’. It was totally the right decision. It was one of those lucky things because she could have said go and be a builder and I would have been a rubbish builder,” laughs Paul.
Paul’s career saw him work his way up the ladder and he explained how the industry operated when he started out. “I went to college in Guilford and while I was there I wrote to several big hotels – that’s what you did in those days. Restaurants were not the place to be, it was hotels, and The Ritz came back and said they had a three-year apprenticeship. So I signed up and that’s probably where I started to think, ‘I really enjoy this and want to pursue it’. Like all other London chefs, I went around London working for as many of the great head chefs of the day as I could.”
Achieving Michelin-starred ratings at a young age, Paul reveals why he had a change of heart and slowly gravitated away from fine dining.
“When I decided to become a Head Chef, I ended up in a restaurant called Interlude, which was on Charlotte Street. I was about 28 or 29 at the time and we worked liked dogs for a year with the one intention – getting a Michelin star, and we got one.”
“Then when I left Interlude, I was approached by the Greenhouse in Mayfair, where I had previously worked, and I went back there as Head Chef. I was once I left the Greenhouse that I kind of fell out of love with fine dining. It wasn’t touching my soul very much and I needed more of a connection with food. I had young children at the time and I was beginning to think about food in a slightly different way and that’s why I decided to look at gastropubs.” Continue reading…