Experimental Caterers: Blanch & Shock

Every Wednesday we'll be talking to someone we work with about how they got to where they are, where they hope to go next and what advice they'd give to anyone wanting to get into the industry. This week we're talking to the marvellous Mike from experimental food designers extraordinaire Blanch and Shock.

Mike is the Fearsome one on the left

Teatime: How would you describe your job?

Mike: I am one of the co-Directors of Blanch and Shock. As a caterer and design studio our work is really varied, and my job reflects that. One day we might be running a workshop teaching kids about flavour, another day designing new dishes for a tasting experience and the next making lunch for 100 people. As well as cooking I look after a lot of the back of house work which means looking after our clients, finance etc.

Teatime: How did you end up where you are now?

Mike:  When I was younger I thought I wanted to make a living from music, but slowly I was seduced by art and design, although I have no formal training. I have always loved food and drink, and spent a few years selling both, learning about wine in some excellent wine shops and sampling a broad range of food available in London whilst working at Borough Market. Eventually I began to build an art practice focused on food and the economies and communities that growing, distributing and cooking food create. When we formed Blanch & Shock, it was this interlacing of disciplines that I brought to combine with Amy & Josh’s approaches.

Teatime: Do you wish you had done anything differently?

Mike: I think our mistakes are what make us. What is challenging about Blanch & Shock is the way that it combines an ever evolving practice with a business (makers living from their craft all do this more or less explicitly) and I think if we had set out from the start to build a catering company pure and simple, we would have done things quite differently. However, we have always been adamantly self-taught, learning new skills in all areas as we go, and as an approach to making an interesting art or design practice, I am glad that we have stuck to this approach. The exploratory nature of our development is one of our best assets.

Teatime: What are you working on at the moment?

Mike: We are soon to take part in a new residency, it will be called Kitchen Party, in Islington. As I write this it’s not announced, but do google it when you read this! There will be a 4 course set menu with some little extras to add on here and there, like some of our fermented products, some cheese or maybe a hay milkshake. It will be quite relaxed and should give you a taste of our forthcoming restaurant.

Teatime: What have been your favourite projects so far and why?

Mike: We have loved projects where the ideas and concepts work closely with, and are expressed through the food. Bone Dinner with Companis was one, where we served a 7-course feast around the theme of bones in tribute to Gordon Matta Clark. All guests got bone-jewellery made for them by Elizabeth Short from the leftovers of the food they were eating. Another has been all of our dinners with Light Collective, for the LED firm Xicato. The brief is largely to be as colourful as possible, and sometimes we have followed a progression through the visible spectrum from course to course.

We also once put on an extravagant tasting experience with Teatime, based on Hitchcock films and hosted at the Criterion Theatre, all around the building. Guests ate roasted quails while footage of The Birds played behind them, received descending picnic baskets a la Rear Window and pretended to poison each other with fake cocktail adulterants.

Teatime: What are your hopes/plans for the future? Do you have an end goal?

Mike: In the medium term we are opening up a permanent site – more like a restaurant than anything we’ve done before, but with a strong emphasis on education, acting like a hub for all cooks and for other professional chefs. We would love to have somewhere that is a strong base, and where we can welcome people many times. Personally in the long term I would like to pursue the educational nature of what we do to a greater extent, to develop cooks, artists and designers in any way we can.

Teatime: How and when does inspiration strike? Do you have a process for coming up with ideas?

Mike: I think it’s different for all three of us. I agree with the old dictum that ‘inspiration has to find you working,’ and I think it’s about what you put in, or get your mind to think about, that affects what you’ll get back. I keep thematic lists of ideas I have when they don’t relate to a particular project, and often these are a good starting point when I’m developing something new. Thinking about something for a while, and then going and doing something else, perhaps non-verbal like cooking or exercise often works well. I have lots of ideas when cycling around London.

Teatime: What are you interested in right now?

Mike: I have a couple of pet projects right now: research into the role of creativity in the kitchen and a broad question: what is the responsibility of the urban chef? In the kitchen I’m most interested in working on desserts, looking at baked goods and trying to understand how they are put together, and what hybrids might be. Also, Josh and I are both mad for fermented products, things based on sauerkraut process, for example.

Teatime: Who do you admire and why?

Mike: The chefs I admire the most are those who try to share information in the most articulate way outside the kitchen. Top of the pile in this regard for me are Michael Laiskonis (ex-Le Bernardin, NYC), Daniel Patterson (Coi, San Francisco), bloggers Aki and Alex of www.ideasinfood.com and the Adrià brothers, who should need no introduction.

Teatime: What is your advice for people who would like a job like yours? 

Mike: If you want to work in a similar vein to us, I would say try to seek as much experience as possible and learn everything you can. This can be done in many ways, in the field, in books, ideally a combination of both. Communicate with people, make links online – twitter has been a great source of new friends and of information for us – and of course make work, again and again. At the beginning, you’ll be very much in the shadow of your influences – I think almost nobody ever fully steps away – but as time goes by you will begin to find your own voice.

You can find out more about Mike, Blanch and Shock and their brilliant projects via their website, Facebook and Twitter.