Hi guys, hope you're well. So I want to tell you a lovely little story about the most
amazing smoked salmon, these stories I believe need to be told about talented
people that put everything on the line and everything into making the very very
best, check this out this is a story of the secret smokehouse.
There was this amazing old chap who smoked kippers on the west coast of
Scotland and just south of Loch Gilb and it was just this ancient old
smokehouse we'd go there in the Saturday morning and we would always go and ask them
what they did it was always secret secret this secret that which then has
obviously kind of got an influence on the name of the business. It started by
complete accident I came to a junction in my career, working
career and 15 years in London working away and then I went back up Scotland to
kind of decompress from the whole thing built this smoker using pallets to start
smoking fish and I then came back down to London to basically figure out what
what it was that I was doing lived in and around the East End of London for about
15 years but just moved into a place down in Stepney. My fish filleting was
appalling like I'd hacked away at it and right next to Stepney is of course
Billingsgate fish market so I thought actually I think I'm going to improve my skills so
I enrolled in this amazing fish mongering course down at Billingsgate. Then
something dawned on me you know that Eureka moment, why don't I build another
smoker in the back garden? Off I set, three hundred quid my back pocket bought
shed all the equipment you need to do it and you know my new skill of being able to
fillet and I started producing it in East End of London. All these coincidences
started happening and I unearthed all this rich rich history of smoke houses
in Stepney and that was all by chance when I walked into my local pub called
the peacock proper East End Pub from the outside
definitely looks closed go in and then you know almost like the music stops and
people's heads turn around and this lovely old guy came up to me just
introduced himself and he offered me a drink and he was like "alright boy" you
know "where are you from" you know "what are you doing" I was like I've come for a drink
chatting away and all this you know they're all amazing they've all
got amazing stories these these lovely guys and it's like honestly you're like
putty in their hands just listening to these incredible like when they were younger
or somebody used to work down Billingsgate and then I was like oh I
smoke fish I'm smoking fish in the back garden,
and they all their ears all pick up and then tell me these incredible stories
about smoke houses that used to be round in Stepney and then that's it they were
just like trying to suss out to see what if I was legit yeah I think they thought
that I was an undercover policeman or something like that it was it was very funny.
They then became ultimately my my litmus paper for what was going on because I
you can't fool them if you give him a bit of smoked haddock and it's not up to
scratch they'll they'll tell you they will tell you and they won't mince their
words. The first time they tasted the haddock and the kippers one of the
comments I'll never forget was it was the best smoked haddock he'd he'd tasted
in like 25 years and I was just right ok if if these guys are liking it then fine
let's just keep carrying on and that confidence that they gave me I will
never forget how they in the peacock just totally and utterly supported me
and then my milkman became my acado delivery service and he started taking
orders on his milk run round Stepney and I then started selling out and then
realized that there was a business behind it there really wasn't a
no-frills smokehouse but just doing one thing well and that was smoking it with
the old-fashioned way not trying to infuse it not to be clever
just like really beautiful beautifully sourced and then beautifully cured and
smoked fish. There also wasn't any plan B you know it had to work you know if you're
gonna do this balls on the line go for it and don't look back. Word got out that I was
smoking fish and a phone call came in from from a chef, a meeting was put in the
diary and I didn't know what I was going into, the environment anything whatsoever so I
kind of bounced along with a couple of sides of smoked salmon under my arm
got taken into the kitchen and there was this kitchen full of chefs like 20 chefs
and they all stopped and then the main chef came in asked me a million
questions about what I was doing, how I was doing it etc turning upside down, slicing
it, putting it up to the light, smelling it and just generally just seeing what I was
doing was was genuine and if I was the real McCoy or if I was you know blagging
it. He was just blown away by the flavour I said are you just saying this
because I'm I'm stood in front of you? You know for all the chef's behind this
guy like. Basically the chef was Claude Bosi, two Michelin star chef and he was
just blown away by it I think it took a long time for that to sink in you
become quite blinkered in what you're doing and you only wanted to do
something I guess in a selfish way I want to produce salmon like this
or smoked salmon this way and then all of a sudden somebody tastes it like that
and you like oh okay right crikey we've maybe got something here. We now
supply the most insane restaurants and hotels here in London you can't pull wool
over these guys eyes if that flavour that really important flavour that you're
trying to get into the fish that allows them to hero it on the plate
and the magic ingredient or the secret ingredient is I guess the passion and
the love of what we do there's something romantic and also really amazing about
staying small and true to what it is and why I set it up. The shed's here we have grown
not gonna lie but we never changed our process we're not big mass-producer
we don't have big machines, filleting machines, special things to
pin bone or fancy circular knives everything is done by hand and with that
I think there's so much power in it. Why be anything bigger than what you are
because as soon as you grow way to big then you're just producing average
again and that's not what I set it up for.