Welcome back to our Substack! Before we get into the article today, I just wanted to say thank you so much for being here and for supporting our work and also to say that this piece does touch on mental health, in case that is a sensitive topic for you.
It’s always a privilege when someone I am interviewing, chooses to be open. To put yourself in a position where you are showing vulnerability, takes a great deal of courage, especially when you’re talking to someone you don’t know very well. Something I am continuing to learn is how to hold a space for someone to say what they want to say in their own time and on their own terms. And how to listen in a really active way. When I approached Connor for this interview, he willingly agreed but wasn’t sure he’d have much to say. Within minutes, it was clear that the antithesis of this was true. Connor stepped into this space with such honesty and openness, sensitively sharing his experience with his mental health, his time in some of Edinburgh’s most highly-esteemed kitchens and the life-long friendships he’s made along the way.
Connor Stewart is a chef and a baker who I first met back in 2020, when I was considering a career change and worked for a couple of weeks in the Easter Road Twelve Triangles kitchen as a temp baker. Connor was the Head Baker there and calmly answered the many questions I had, patiently guiding me through every process having never worked in a commercial kitchen before. One week I accidentally left a lemon drizzle loaf in the oven, so much so that it came out looking like a chocolate cake and Connor gently binned it, told me not to worry about it and helped me get another batch of cake batter on to remake it. In another kitchen, the response could have been very different and I have never forgotten the way he handled that moment. Since then he’s moved on to pasture’s new and I’ve parked my bakery endeavours for now.
Although I’d worked with Connor before, we’d never had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation together. I’m always interested in hearing about someone’s career path and so I started by asking Connor about his route into hospitality. He told me, ‘I had a massive interest, to put it lightly, in cooking and baking. I always cooked at home with my parents or my gran and it became apparent that I wanted to do it a lot more than just a usual once or twice a week in high school.’ He took a Higher in hospitality and then went onto college to do a couple of catering courses, working up to achieving a HNC. Although he found the course interesting, he increasingly felt a need to get into kitchens and to see first-hand what it was like. He told me, ‘I was quite particular about where I chose for my first kitchen, I did want a place that would teach me the basics and the old French techniques.’ He added, ‘I really wanted to challenge myself and cook some interesting, cool food and Edinburgh seemed closest to home but also still far enough away that I could become independent and find myself.’ I asked Connor at what age he moved from Stirling and he joked, ‘I think I moved - and this changes quite a lot when I tell people - I think I was just turning eighteen.’
I was curious to hear what his first experience was like in a commercial kitchen. He told me, ‘It was really tough - being fast, being precise are all quite difficult things to do when you’ve not had to be that precise or quick before.’ It was quite a contrast to college where he had much more time to get things done without time restraints or stress or pressure. But he also found this first experience at Cafe St Honore hugely rewarding, largely down to Chef Director, Neil Forbes. Connor said, ‘It was important for me that I chose a kitchen that wasn’t loud or ego-driven and I definitely think choosing the restaurant that I did was incredibly nurturing.’ He added, ‘I can’t speak highly enough of Neil, he’s an amazing guy. He had similar beliefs to what I wanted and was a great, almost father-like figure.’ Connor described Neil as someone who has stood out in his career and who indefinitely made an early, positive impact, helping him to feel at home and to feel part of a team.
During his time at Cafe St Honore, Connor worked across different stations, describing it as a ‘rollercoaster’ in terms of finding out what he enjoyed most. He explained how he started off on starters - working on soups and preparing vegetables. He then slowly moved onto making pastry and sourdough bread - something completely new to him. As he grew in confidence and gained more skill, he moved onto meat and fish cookery before working his way up to sauce. He told me, 'I initially had a massive interest in doing sauce and any fish and meat butchery - making sauces, roasting meat there’s nothing like it - it’s very much in the moment, you can see it happening, you can smell it, you can taste it, you can touch it, it’s all there.’ He reflected, ‘I’ve always had an interest in pastry, always. I love to eat them, love to make them. I was put on pastry for a good amount of time in Cafe and ended up preferring it which was nice.’
I asked Connor what it was about pastry that sparked his interest, he said ‘I liked how you could go more carefully, more slowly and be a bit more precise.’ He continued, ‘I pull a lot more enjoyment and a lot more love out of baking. I think that’s probably rooted to my childhood; my Gran and my Nana are both great cooks and bakers. I’m a real lover of a home-baked something, could be anything.’ He spoke fondly of his Nana’s apple cake, describing how she would haphazardly throw the unpeeled apple slices into an equal amount cake batter and it would always come out delicious. He told me, ‘I think the issue I’ve found when you try and create that nostalgic bake, you can almost overcomplicate it a little. You just have to go back to basics.’ He continued, ‘I like Jess Elliott Dennison’s Lazy Baking - it’s done me good since it first came out. I particularly like her old school cake, there’s the plain sponge, jam and coconut. That’s the type of baking I really enjoy, there’s no frills to it, I think the best way to describe it is it’s humble, it’s not trying to be anything than a ginger cake or say a flourless chocolate cake.’
After some time at Cafe St Honore, Connor felt a pull to progress and try new things. He told me, ‘I was caught in this daze of shiny, fancy kitchens that were doing next level stuff.’ He reflected, ‘I was still young, impressionable, my eye was on that Michelin-starred restaurant because that was what was important to me, so my next move was Norn.’ He described this next step as, ‘even scarier than going to Cafe St Honore’ but that he eventually settled and became part of the team. It was quite a different style of cooking in comparison to Cafe St Honore and after building up skill and trust, he found himself on the pastry section again. He stayed there for the rest of his time at Norn before it shut. He told me, ‘I loved it - so much to do in comparison to what I’d done previously. There was a pre-dessert, a dessert, a cheese course that came with some sort of gel or chutney or fermented item, there was crackers, there was snacks for the first bite and bread to make so it was amazing, I was in my element.’
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