Cooking Indian Fish & Chips with Vivek Singh

As part of the build-up to London Restaurant Festival, which I'll be working at over the next couple of weeks, I was recently invited to try my hand at an Indian take on fish & chips at Cinnamon Kitchen with chef Vivek Singh.

The dish will be served as part of a special London Restaurant Festival menu this coming weekend at sister restaurant Cinnamon Club. Don’t worry. It will be chef Vivek Singh cooking yours, not me.

If you think you’re up to it, check out the recipe below to try it for yourself. And do look out for me looking gormless with a potato in my hand. Oh yes.

Interview - Jun Tanaker

Jun Tanaker, head chef at Pearl restaurant is about to embark on a mission to bring gastronomic food to the streets of London, as part of London Restaurant Festival. I talk to him about this project, plus his life as a chef.

What was it that made you want to become a chef?
I was nineteen, which is quite old as a lot of people start when they’re sixteen. It was purely through love of food. You have to really, really love food to actually cook for a living and do it for the rest of the life, because when you’re doing something constantly, so many hours a day, the passion can die.

When you realised you wanted to become a chef, you asked your Dad which restaurants in London he rated and then tried to get an apprenticeship at these places. If someone asked you the same question today, where would you recommend?
That’s difficult (pauses). I would say The Ledbury, Pied a Terre, Marcus Wareing at The Berkley and Hibiscus.