Back To His Roots

When Simon Rogan opened his restaurant Fera at the Claridge's in London three years ago, detractors were quick to question the unlikely fit of this acclaimed farm-to-table chef from the Lake District in the hard-nosed businessman's playground of Mayfair that had been run by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay before him.

"At the time, I was like, 'Go to hell - what do you know?'" laughs the affable 51-year-old on a brief stopover in Singapore last week. "But looking back, they were absolutely right."

As the chef-owner of the two Michelin-starred L'Enclume in Cartmel, he had a devoted following with his progressive cuisine focusing on produce sourced from the surrounding area and now from his own farm. But what he didn't count on at Fera was a clientele who wanted to eat beef wellington and prawn cocktail, not his meticulously crafted pine-smoked beetroot, raw and preserved vegetables. or onion and whey-fermented grains.