Chef on starting over at nearly 40

Lauren Taylor chats to Stephen Harris about his Michelin-star pub

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Stephen Harris.

Stephen Harris remembers feeling ill one day and craving the comforting childhood memory of cream of mushroom soup. And being bitterly disappointed with a can from a shop.

"I opened it, the smell was horrendous. I couldn't even eat that," says the Michelin-star chef, who owns The Sportsman near Whitstable, Kent.

"So I felt, right, I'm going to improve this recipe and make it as good as my memory. I fried up some mushrooms, added a bit of soy sauce - because that brings out the mushroom flavour - I made a stock by putting some milk in a pan, dried cep mushroom, a bit of thyme and a clove of garlic" - along with extra raw mushrooms blitzed up, the stock strained into the blender.

"I just got this gorgeous mushroom soup, that exactly matched the memory I had of it as a kid. I also made cream of tomato and cream of chicken," adds the 64-year-old. "Oh my God it's simple but it's better."