Michelin-starred Northcote restaurant in Lancashire has been rated the best in the UK by Tripadvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best Restaurants awards.
I paid the restaurant a visit – full review to come – to see if it lived up to the hype. And while there discovered that head chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen makes possibly the best chips you’ll ever eat.
They’re pillowy-soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. They even impressed my hard-to-impress French partner.
What’s the secret? Lisa was kind enough to divulge some of the steps she takes to make them when I chatted with her about her remarkable success.
The first step? A decent spud.
Lisa said: ‘We get the right potato for a start.
‘You need a chipping potato [Maris Piper and King Edward potatoes, for example] and then we cook them in salted water and then fluff them like a roast potato.
‘That involves putting them in a pan or colander and shaking them so they go fluffy on the outside.
Lisa Goodwin-Allen is head chef at Northcote restaurant in Lancashire, rated the best in the UK by Tripadvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Best of the Best Restaurants awards
‘And then we freeze them – and we cook them from frozen.
‘And what happens is the inside goes really fluffy, because it kind of breaks down, and when we fry them the outside goes really crispy.’
If you want to try them at Northcote you can order the aged beef fillet (£55), which comes with triple-cooked chips.
Or follow in our footsteps and order chicken and chips for your child – and eat the leftovers.
Of course, the restaurant’s success isn’t just down to the quality of the chips.
Lisa believes it comes from a desire to evolve and keep learning.
She says: ‘I think you’ve got to keep evolving. Keep your team evolving. Keep yourself evolving to be able to drive people within your environment. To want to do better and to learn more and achieve more.
‘I love to learn new things.’
Northcote’s triple-cooked chips, which are ‘pillow-y soft’ on the inside and crispy on the outside
Northcote lies on the threshold of the Forest of Bowland National Landscape, east of Preston
Many chefs will have noted that Lisa hasn’t included ‘shouting at people’ as being part of her modus operandi.
She confirms: ‘We’re not a shouty kitchen. We’re very controlled and organised.’
Lisa will also take careful note of customer feedback – and use it to improve.
She reveals: ‘We’ll always take constructive feedback because it’s how we can get better and improve. We’ll always take it on board. Some customers have valid points, so we always look at them, and we always respond to them.’
Most would agree – sounds like a recipe for success.
When Lisa isn’t rustling up award-winning food and studying customer comments, you might find her eating out at one of her favourite restaurants.
Northcote lies on the threshold of the Forest of Bowland National Landscape, east of Preston, and Lisa names the Inn at Whitewell and The Parkers Arms as two local restaurants she loves to eat at.
Her favourite Michelin-starred restaurants, meanwhile, include London’s Sabor (‘unfussed but delicious food’), Core by Clare Smyth (‘pure brilliance’), Da Terra, which is helmed by Rafael Cagali, and The Ledbury, where head chef Brett Graham is ‘doing amazing things’.
At home, Lisa says she enjoys cooking ‘traditional stuff’ for her husband and son such as pizza and lasagna – but will ‘change up the protein to venison or chicken’.
‘Good old humble food,’ says Lisa.
I suspect it’s probably the best humble food they’ll ever eat.
Visit www.northcote.com.
