Theo Randall’s Death Row Meal & More
Chef Theo Randall’s death row meal would be seriously luxurious. He specialises in Italian food, meaning he just can’t live without a good olive oil.
When asked about the final meal you’d want on this earth, most of us would opt for simple comforts: maybe the ultimate cheese toastie, or your dad’s lasagne. But if you’re a top chef like Theo Randall, you’re likely going to choose something a bit fancier.
This is what we found out when Randall answered our quickfire food questions…
Your death row meal is…
“A plate of Scottish langoustines, steamed and served with a particular olive oil called Capezzana olive oil from Tuscany. Then I’d probably have a plate of tagliolini pasta with white truffle – obviously that is one of the greatest luxuries going, but this is my last meal, so I’ll take that. Then I’d have a Scottish grouse, roasted on bruschetta with porcini mushrooms and a wine sauce. I’d finish off with some gorgonzola with a Cox’s Orange Pippin apple from our garden. Then I’d have a big bowl of ice-cold cherries, and I’d sit down and spit them out on the terrace.”
Your favourite store cupboard essential is…
“It’s got to be olive oil. It’s one of those things I just can’t imagine not cooking with. You can cook with butter a bit, you can make a sauce or you can fry something with a bit of butter, but olive oil is just the key to life, really. You can put it on bread as it is, you can make a pasta sauce with it, you can fry something, it’s just so important.”
The kitchen utensil you can’t live without is…
“I absolutely love my pestle and mortar. When we talk about kitchen gadgets and all these thermo mixers and stuff like that, I have no time for them whatsoever. I’ve got a few electrical things in the kitchen, but for me it’s about good old chopping boards, really good knives, a steel so you can keep the knife sharp and a pestle and mortar. It’s how cooking should be – with a pestle and mortar. If everyone bought a pestle and mortar, they’d probably get rid of so many of their kitchen gadgets sitting in a cupboard collecting dust. You can make the most amazing sauces, you can make pesto, you can crush nice spices to make a really good curry, you can make an aioli – all these things.”
Your favourite late-night snack is…
“This has got to be sourdough bread – white or brown, it doesn’t matter. Really good unsalted butter, and there has got to be Marmite. There’s nothing like it and there’s an art to it, you have to get it just right.”
You like your eggs…
“Since lockdown, I’ve become a bit of an egg specialist because of having the kids at home and them saying, ‘Dad, I want to have poached eggs or scrambled eggs today’. I have perfected them all. For me, my favourite way of having an egg is literally just fried, over-easy, or poached.
You know what, I really can’t tell you – poached or fried. It’s all about the quality of the egg and how fresh it is.”
What did you eat last night?
“It was actually quite special last night – we had sea bass. I’ve got a friend who is based in Poole and a fisherman, so he sends me fish – it comes whole in this big polystyrene box. I fillet it, prepare it and put it into vac bags and freeze it, so our freezer always has a decent selection of fish. So we had seabass. I didn’t have that much in the fridge, but I thought I’d make some courgettes, broccoli, boiled potatoes, and I made a sauce with some salted anchovies and capers and a little bit of crème fraiche, whisked a bit of butter at the end and poured that on top. It was absolutely delicious, just a piece of sea bass seared in the pan.”
To cure a hangover your go-to is…
“Not drinking too much the night before… but I’d say it’s got to be toast with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and lots of tea.”
Your signature dish…
“In the restaurant [Theo Randall at the InterContinental] we’re really famous for our fresh pasta. We make this pasta called cappelletti, which means little hats. It’s a shoulder of veal slow-cooked for five hours, then we chop it up by hand and use all the roasting juices – we add parmesan, then we use a very rich pasta with lots of egg yolks and we make the little cappelletti, which are a bit like tortelloni. We make a sauce with dried porcini mushrooms, which we soak and cook them really slowly. Then we add the pasta, we add a bit of the roasting juice from the veal, then mix that into butter and the porcini mushrooms.”
The Italian Deli Cookbook by Theo Randall, photography by Lizzie Mayson, is published by Quadrille. Available now.