Three weeks shy of 30 and three months from running his own kitchen for the first time at autumn arrival Elliot’s Borough Market the Glaswegian has already held positions at Tom Aikens and The Ledbury in London, Marque in Sydney, Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York and, most opportunely, Noma in Copenhagen, named World’s Best Restaurant in April.

I am nevertheless impressed by McHale’s fleeting experiences abroad, first of all because he’s so up front about their laughably limited scope but, more significantly, from the multiple ways in which he’s been stimulated by them.

Only when you examine the timelines does McHale’s luminous work history begin to lose wattage. His spell at Noma under Rene Redzepi lasted only 3 weeks; his tutelage in the shadow of Momofuko’s David Chang, all of one day. Furthermore, his duties at those acclaimed restaurants were hardly challenging. When he wasn’t prepping cauliflower at Noma he was inside the refrigerator, scraping granita. Ah, the glamorous life of the kitchen temp.

It’s an oddity of apprenticeships: one protégé can spend 20 years working closely with a maestro and then accomplish little on his own, whereas another can stick around just long enough for a cup of coffee yet be nudged onto the path of true greatness. I think of the short but momentous few months Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi worked as an assistant in the Paris studio of Roumanian Constantin Brancusi.

McHale took stock of his backstage glimpse of Noma, even if he himself didn’t prepare any. He pushed himself to the front of the kitchen to help dress plates and marvelled at the organic, casual and deceptively simple look of dishes painstakingly composed to Redzepi’s exacting templates. He observed how the kitchen learned the nationality of every guest and sent out a chef who could explain various dishes to each diner in his native language. He felt the full force of Redzepi’s fervor for local sourcing and foraging. Out of faith, opportunism or a combination of both he now practices a religion where non-indigenous mangoes and coconuts are the forbidden fruits.

Normal people pull out their mobiles to show you recent snaps of their baby. McHale hands you his HTC Legend do show you up-to-date snaps of his baby radishes. A seed geek keen to revive vanished varieties of British heritage vegetables and fruit, McHale and Elliot’s have forged a partnership with Chegworth Valley Farm in Kent. That award-winning juice company will cultivate rarely harvested seeds for McHale and he’ll use their yield at Elliot’s, which is to source directly from Borough Market traders such as Chegworth. At the Pavilion pop-up he buried Chegworth radishes in an edible compost of black sesame seeds, a homage to or theft from –  take your pick – Noma and its signature Radiser amuse of radishes in a pot of soil.

Momofuko reinforced McHale’s appreciation for exceptional dining without the comforts traditionally associated with it. Not content just to have a casual restaurant with topless tables (no naperie) on both levels McHale wants the six seats and bar that will face Elliot’s open-kitchen downstairs to be set at the precisely the right heights to promote easy interaction between cooks and diners. He scouted the restaurants of New York with a tape measure in his pocket and regards the height of the chairs at Momofuko as a trade secret nearly as valuable as its recipe for fried chicken.

photo by Brian Jones

So will Isaac McHale be the next big thing? Hard to say. He cooked alongside Brett Graham at The Ledbury for 5 years and says it took that enormously talented chef almost as long to advance from cooking in the style of what he calls “London chefs doing French food” to one all his own. McHale will have to prove he can do the same, progressing from Noma themes, Ledbury riffs or Momofuko melodies. He must also learn to circumvent inevitable kitchen disasters such as the one last Friday that led to a main course of Old Spot pork shoulder as dry and tough as any in London.

photo by Brian Jones

Still I would not dare miss one of his Friday pop-up dinners, which are nearly sold out for the entire summer. The setting is spectacular; the wines are well chosen and much of the food, from chicken oysters in pine salt to Cornish mackeral with celtic mustard, is exquisitely conceived and prepared. Besides, if McHale does make it big you will want to be able to tell your grandchildren that you knew his beautiful radishes, carrots, spring onions and cucumbers back when they were still babies.
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