Features / Breakfast with Bristol24/7
Breakfast With Bristol24/7: Genevieve Taylor
Cooking over fire is Genevieve Taylor’s speciality, so it makes perfect sense that the Bristol restaurant she chooses for our breakfast interview is at a restaurant where the chefs work multiple fire pits, grills, a genuine wood fired oven and two huge cast iron cauldrons.
Genevieve’s fellow member of the Guild of Food Writers, Marina O’Loughlin, now at The Sunday Times, called The Cauldron “a bubbling little melting pot of idiosyncrasy” when writing for The Guardian in 2016.
I arrived early in St Werburgh’s so grabbed a coffee on the outside seating area in nearby Popti & Beast, that was fortunately covered by an awning as the rain lashed down outside. Soon before 10.30am, I walked almost next door to the restaurant and was greeted warmly by chef-patron Henry Eldon before Genevieve arrived.
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Born in Cornwall, Genevieve lived in Kent until she was ten when she moved to Plymouth with her mum and brother when her parents split up. She left home at 18, went to university in Manchester and has been living in Bristol since 1996, originally drawn to the city to work in wildlife filmmaking, where she rose through the ranks from a researcher to a series producer who travelled the world.
Now a mother of two children, an 11-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, Genevieve admitted that she misses those days, but now as a self-taught chef she has forged an entirely new career: one that encompasses cooking, writing and food styling.
Her tenth book, Charred, aims to show that fire and smoke does not always have to be about hunks of meat.
“Chargrilling and barbecue are a fantastic way of getting the maximum flavour out of versatile vegetables,” says Genevieve, who grows many of her vegetables at her allotment just a few minutes walk from her home in St Anne’s.
Genevieve Taylor and her full meaty breakfast at The Cauldron – Illustrated by Anna Higgie
She is nonetheless a committed carnivore, however, and for breakfast chooses the full meaty: chipolata, smoked streaky bacon, hog’s and black pudding, sautéed mushrooms, beans, wood-fired tomato, egg and toast. “This will certainly sort me out for the day,” Genevieve says between mouthfuls.
Genevieve wrote most of her new book in a shed on her allotment. “I can sort of reverse myself into it with my table. And just sit there. So I’m in the shelter of the rain.” She shows me a photo of the view from her Instagram feed and it could be in the countryside.
My own choice from the brunch menu is the haddock kedgeree: smoked haddock, curried sultanas, rice and grated hen’s egg. Absolutely sensational, even with the unusual addition of the sultanas.
A poster for Genevieve’s book launch at Lost & Grounded is on one wall of the restaurant, with many of her friends and family attending. Bristol is in fact a hotbed of food and drink writers, mostly women too, with the likes of Fiona Beckett of The Guardian, Xanthe Clay of The Telegraph and Kate Hawkins of Bellita, whose book Aperetif has become something of a bible for this drink’s particular charms.
Genevieve found her own speciality of fire cooking thanks to her love of being outside. “With all this technical gadgetry and wizardry, like sous vide, I think that chefs wanted to take it back a little. Fire is a new challenge, because it’s very primal. You have to learn to master the fire and control the fire and work with the fire.
“For me and to a lot of other fire chefs, that’s exciting. It’s a lot more exciting than setting a time on a fancy-pants oven and just pushing a button to make things work. It’s a lot more hands-on.
“Human evolution has happened in tandem with fire. I think fire was absolutely at the base of what makes us human.”
The Cauldron
98 Mina Road, St Werburgh’s, BS2 9XW
0117 914 1321
www.thecauldron.restaurant
Meaty breakfast £8
Haddock kedgeree £7.90
Americano £2
Flat white £2.40
Total £20.30
Illustration by Anna Higgie
Read More: Breakfast with Bristol24/7: James Freeman
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