Deliciouslyorkshire | Chef's Profile | Ashley McCarthy

Ashley McCarthy

Chef at: Ye Old Sun Inn, Colton

Chef Interview

• How did you get into cooking?
  • Runs in the family really, mother is still a chef on the North Yorkshire Moors. Found a great interest for food from a young age and never lost the passion of putting things together to make an end product.

• What is your favorite food and why?
  • Bangers and mash, comfort food dish but it can be done so bad, good quality sausages creamy mashed potato and a well flavoured gravy……we cannot always be eating top notch food!

• What is your signature dish?
  • Don’t have a signature dish, as we change the menu monthly to fit in with new seasons and rotate local suppliers. But we do have many dished that make a comeback quiet often.

• Do you have a favorite Yorkshire product, what is it, and why?
  • Love the rape seed oil from Wharf Valley in Collingham, rich in flavor golden colour and full of essential benefits to health. Have been around the farm and watched the process well worth a try!

• What are your top three cooking tips?
  • Experiment – try different foods together, who’s to say it doesn’t work… everyone has different tastes.
  • Use local – it helps the community and has provenance, use the knowledge of the small producer to help you with ideas for different dishes.
  • Cook with friends – share your experiences with food with others, don’t just cook for friends cook with them… cooking is fun after all!

• Why do you think local food is best?
  • You can see the product from the beginning to the end and can talk to the producer to draw on their knowledge of the product.

• What would you say is your greatest achievement?
  • Winning Chef of the Year in 2008 was an tremendous achievement, but when I was working at a York hotel in 1999 Neil Armstrong was staying and I cooked for him in the evening and also made his breakfast the following day… might have been an astronaut if I didn’t become a chef!!

• Who in the food world do you most admire, and why?
  • Many, many chefs but the real one for me is Ken Allanson then from Scarborough College, he had such a fantastic knowledge and passion for the trade teaching a skill and career to so many high profile chefs such as James Martin, Andrew Pern and many more… Wickedly dry sense of humour and a great person. Cheers Ken.