Words by Christina Dean
“I tell you what we don’t do anymore. We don’t do braises anymore. We don’t poach fish anymore.” It’s an unexpected take from one of the country’s premier meat cooks, whilst we’re sitting in the barbecue restaurant he’s spearheading reflecting on the popularity of live fire cooking in the UK. But Richard H. Turner has got a point. Live fire cooking has become increasingly popular and many regular kitchens now have a live fire element in there even if it’s not the restaurant’s specialism. “Live fire is brilliant, but let’s not do everything on live fire, let’s mix it up,” he says. “Unless you’re a barbecue restaurant, in which case, of course that’s your thing.”
It certainly became Richard’s thing, intentionally or not. A former paratrooper in the British Army, he started close protection work when he left, which despite being “a very boring thing to do, really mundane”, led him to dinner at Le Gavroche. After bugging them to let him in the kitchen, he became a cook. A year there led to stints at some of the world’s best kitchens, including several led by Marco Pierre White (Harvey’s, Restaurant Marco Pierre White, Quo Vadis, The Canteen), Le Tante Claire with Pierre Koffmann, Joël Robuchon in Paris, Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo, and Philippe Million’s restaurant in Albertville.
After a sojourn opening restaurants in America, Richard returned to the UK and started doing live fire cooking at his pub The Albion in Islington about 20 years ago when “almost no one was doing it. The Turkish ocakbasis were doing it. That was it, that was it, literally, the ocakbasis and me at the Albion, and I think that was it”. Then came Hawksmoor.
Richard was a customer first, in the very beginning, and “the steak was incredible. The steak was like nine out of 10, but everything around the outside was a bit, you know, meh, because it was early days. And I thought, you know, they’re on to something here, but they’re not really doing it, they’re not pulling it off.” He asked to work in the kitchen and they let him – coincidentally at a time when he had been working on his own steakhouse concept, with recipes ready to go. Instead of forging ahead solo, he chose to implement his ideas at Hawsmoor instead, working on everything outside of the steak. Then came a second restaurant. Then a third. Now there are thirteen Hawksmoors in total, including two in the States with more to come.
During his decade at Hawksmoor, Richard also set up Turner & George, his own butchery; brought Meatopia over to London from New York; and became involved in the now-closed Pitt Cue and the very-much-still-open Blacklock, set up by former Hawksmoor lawyer Gordon Ker. Now the challenge is Bodean’s.
Launched back in 2002 in Soho by restaurateur Andre Blais, Bodean’s specialised in Kansas City-style BBQ, which encompasses a wider range of meats seasoned with a dry rub and often served with a tomato-based BBQ sauce. The restaurant quickly gained a loyal following for its smoked meats, American beers and bourbons, growing to eight sites at its peak. A combination of expanding menus outside of the KC BBQ niche and a drop in quality amidst an ever more competitive dining scene meant that Bodean’s lost its mojo in recent years. Richard’s appointment as chef director was the chance to revamp the brand, refocus back on the BBQ, and strip away the superfluous menu items. The meat, he says, has always been good at Bodean’s, because the group has always, and still does, smoke meat in proper smokers in a dedicated smokehouse in Wimbledon.
“Live fire is brilliant, but let’s not do everything on live fire, let’s mix it up”
“The thing is there’s a lot of variables in American barbecue. Lots of variables in getting the smoke just right, the temperature just right, the time just right. Not all meat is the same, even if it’s from the same herd or the same farm, different cuts can be different,” explains Richard. “So it requires touch and feel and attention. I mean, I had a chap called Aaron Franklin come over from Texas to cook at Meatopia and he started cooking the day before, and he slept with his smoker. That’s a barbecue guy. We don’t sleep with our smokers but it requires attention. And if you’ve got four or five of these barbecue restaurants, and each one has got those variables going on, that will not work. You need to centralise your smoking so that one guy’s responsible for it, and every single day it’s the same.”
Given that meat is so integral to Bodean’s, and to most of Richard’s ventures, does he believe an operation so meat-heavy can also be sustainable? Not yet is the answer. “There is sustainable meat out there, plenty of it. There’s regenerative meat, not plenty of it, but enough. But trying to get it into the door is quite difficult. It’s something we’re working on, and it is the future of meat in this country, for sure”. He points to the work of Andy Cato, who, as well as being one half of Groove Armada is also a co-founder of Wildfarmed. The organisation already produces regenerative flour and is moving into the world of regenerative beef with the help of restaurateur Stevie Parle. The pair have developed a new system where Wildfarmed’s regenerative farmers introduce cattle to their farms, with beef from a herd of shorthorn/Angus crosses reared on 100% grass in Oxfordshire being served at Parle’s new restaurant Town.
“We should be reducing our intake, but we’re kind of vilifying meat. When it’s produced properly, it has a purpose in the country. You know, it’s not a bad thing,” he says. “Veg grown in monocultures, which is the only way you can feed a country, is incredibly bad for the environment. It’s incredibly bad for wildlife. It’s bad for the soil. They wipe out entire species in certain areas of land just to grow a monoculture.”
There are restaurants doing it right, like Hawksmoor and Blacklock, both in terms of the meat (British, sustainably and ethically raised) and the wider operation (B Corp, focused product, excellent service). Blacklock in particular has really nailed its offering, something that Richard puts squarely on founder Gordon and Head of Operations Maria McCann. “What’s the best word for Gordon?”, he muses, “He’s a zealot about value for money. Yeah, him and Maria, who run Blacklock, they source meat from Philip Warren, and they go through every single cut. It’s all about value, value, value, value, value, and it’s such an incredible product now.”
“The thing is there’s a lot of variables in American barbecue. Lots of variables in getting the smoke just right, the temperature just right, the time just right.”
He’s less upbeat about the wider outlook for the hospitality industry. So far, 2025 is looking pretty bleak, with a host of London closures announced in the first half of the year and many more likely to come as operators struggle with a combination of 20% VAT, increased National Insurance contributions, and rising energy and rent costs.
“We all think there’s gonna be a bloodbath. We can see it coming. Restaurants get squeezed from every which way, particularly the government, staffing costs through the roof, taxation, VAT, everything. It’s all just become really hard to make a profit,” he states. “25 years ago, you would be trying to hit a 20% net profit. Now, if you can hit 10% you’re a restaurant guru. You’re gifted. Most are sort of making 5% net profit. Many are breaking even. I mean, can you imagine owning a restaurant and breaking even at the end of the month or losing money? And you know you’ve worked 100 hours or 80 hours. I mean, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
With the customers also having to contend with inflation and rising prices, simply increasing the prices isn’t a fix – that power only really lies with the government. But the hospitality industry is nothing if not resilient, having weathered Brexit and COVID. “Restaurants are restaurants. They’ve been around. Romans started restaurants,” Richard points out. “So if the Romans started it and it’s still here now, then it won’t die.”
See what’s happening at Bodean’s here.
