The pub of top English chef Mike Robinson serves only wild game. The meat comes from the chef’s own hunting grounds and the focus is on using every last bit of the animal. The 51-year-old has earned a Michelin star with the delicious dishes that he conjures up from his game.
Not even seven days ago, the deer was roaming the forests and meadows of Mike Robinson’s deer park in Berkshire, which is also home to his pub “The Pot Kiln” in Yattendon. The pub is the only one in the world to serve Michelin-starred food. Mike Robinson is not just a multi-award-winning top chef – he is also an avid and passionate hunter with a unique philosophy that British insiders call wild farming. The closeness to nature and respect for the habitat of “his” wild animals has made him humble: “We have always been hunter-gatherers,” he says. “But this is now taking on a new meaning in the age of intensive livestock farming. I find it much more natural to work with a good piece of venison I’ve shot myself than a piece of industrially produced meat.” The animals don’t suffer any stress, aren’t pumped full of drugs and get all of their nutrition from the flora and fauna as healthy, natural food sources. Game meat also benefits from being low in fat and calories, but very high in protein.
Robinson is also a proponent of the “nose to tail” movement, where absolutely every part of an animal is used. “This is another sign of great respect for the animal,” he says. “In the past, nobody would think of just cutting out a few parts of a slaughtered animal and simply throwing the rest away.” And so Robinson makes full use of everything that he kills: Meat, bones and offal go into the pot. Skins are made into saddle cloth, rugs or wall hangings. He carves the antlers of the deer he shoots into beautiful handles for hunting knives.
Following the 51-year-old deerstalker into the undergrowth, you get a sense for the passion he has developed for hunting. He quickly, quietly and skilfully tracks the deer in his almost 1,400 hectare hunting grounds around Berkshire and Oxfordshire. “The woods, meadows and wild farming are a symbol of the English soul for me; hunting has a long tradition in Great Britain,” he says. For Robinson, looking after the deer is a fulfilling passion: “The wonderful thing about hunting for me is understanding nature and learning something about it,” he says. Getting close to a deer, watching it and seeing how these intelligent animals behave is a fascinating pursuit for te bearded Brit. “In England we don’t call it hunting or killing; we call it stalking,” he explains.
When a deer presents itself in the right position, he takes careful aim. Robinson is an advocate of the head shot, which kills the animal quickly and painlessly with one targeted shot. To ensure maximum accuracy, he only aims from the front: “Either I hit my target and the animal is killed instantly, or I shoot past it and the animal is unhurt,” he explains. Another benefit of this approach is that the pellet doesn’t ruin any prized cuts of meat as it enters and exits the flesh, which takes the quality of the meat to another level and suits the top chef’s exquisite style, where nothing is left to chance.
Mike Robinson began his culinary career as a youthful dishwasher in a hotel in the French Alps. After just three and a half years, he became a sous chef and learned all about old French cuisine. Next came a long period in Tasmania in Australia, where he spent 18 months cooking in a top restaurant. Back in England, he set up a catering service, made it a success and sold it at a profit five years later. In 2005 he opened his first pub “The Pot Kiln” in Berkshire and then took on the “Harwood Arms” restaurant in London three years later. He now heads up four restaurants where the stars of the menu are a wide variety of game dishes. Together with around 30 fellow hunters, he kills over 1,200 game animals a year, which he supplies not only to his own restaurants, but also to the competition.
Despite his great success, Robinson remains a down-to-earth fellow with a love of enjoying food sustainably – which as many people as possible should experience.
