The ex drug dealer dreaming of winning a Michelin star

Nathaniel Mortley honed his cooking skills in prison. Now he's opened a restaurant

- JOSH BARRIE

Nathaniel Mortley didn't learn to cook in prison, despite what some people suppose. "A lot of people get it wrong," he tells me, a little frustrated, over pasta at Padella. "I've been cooking since I was a teenager; properly since catering college. I didn't learn in prison, but I did cook there. I was known as 'the chef.

Mortley, better known today as Natty Can Cook, would do "whip-rounds" at HMP Brixton: inmates would save the chicken from meal times and he'd turn boring, unseasoned meat into something far more interesting. A pared-back version of jerk chicken with rice and peas was a standout dish.

The same dish in concept, if not design - is on the menu at his new Herne Hill restaurant, 2210 By Natty Can Cook, two miles from where he was once confined. Mortley's menu is Caribbean at its heart, with French technique and modern adaptations. "Lobster rasta pasta" sees Cornish lobster folded through a spiced tagliatelle with a little cream; crab beignets, soft and light, are spiced with cumin and tempered by yoghurt; duck breasts are seared with pimento and sit on pumpkin purée, with a confit leg croquette and a pumpkin seed brittle. Flavours are big; plating is eventful.

A brutal turning point

Mortley's story is far more complicated than a simple one of going to prison, turning his life around and then opening his own place. Now 31, he was born to middle-class parents in Peckham. His German-Jewish father ran businesses, including the popular Ladywell Tavern; his accountant mother is of Caribbean heritage, Bajan and Guyanese. It's his mother's side of the family that informs his cooking.