WHEN the Real Junk Food Project advertised for a “creative genius” to run the kitchen at Manchester's first “waste food” pay-as-you-feel restaurant, due to open in mid-March at the Wonder Inn, Shudehill, you felt they were perhaps aiming too high.
Devising menus from food intercepted on the day that would otherwise go to waste is a task that requires an agile culinary imagination and technique certainly. All quite different from the set menu fallback of a normal eaterie; more like a procession of ad hoc pop-ups. Wow! Some head chef required.
Well, from a strong shortlist, director Corin Bell and her team have struck gold by appointing TOM fave Mary-Ellen McTague (portrait by Chris Payne). It’s a major coup.
So what is the attraction for a former Heston Blumenthal protege at The Fat Duck, a serial Manchester Food and Drink Awards winner at Aumbry, her own restaurant in Prestwich, Great British Menu contestant, Guardian Weekend columnist and now high-end freelance chef for hire?
There’s no obvious glamour in sourcing and cooking raw materials surplus to requirements at supermarkets and restaurant chains? With only one other chef to assist, the rest volunteers, providing primarily lunches, the bill settled on a pay-as-you-feel donation basis? Or you can even do the washing up!
"I'm doing because I love the whole project; ethically and creatively it works for me," says Mary-Ellen. "Wherever I've cooked I've always been uncomfortable with the amount of food wasted, always tried to make the absolute most of whatever produce we had, but this takes it to a new level.
"On a personal level I'm looking forward to the challenge of cooking on my feet, being limited to whatever arrives on the day. And I'm looking forward to who we are cooking for. Everyone deserves to eat well, whatever their economic status."
Corin Bell sees it as the perfect fit: “I think her experience and level of technique are difficult to beat. She is very creative with a passion for produce. An ethical concern about sustainability has run like a thread throughout her career.”
There will be challenges. Famously the flagship Leeds branch once received 250 kilos of mushrooms that were soon to expire and they had to create a two-day menu with every mushroom dish they could think of.
“It’s like Ready Steady Cook every day,” says Corin, whose mission is not just to make the public aware of the extent of UK food waste – 15 million tonnes discarded annually while nearly six million people live in food poverty – but to do something about it. The restaurant, due to open mid-March, is just one step along the road.
A BBC special fronted by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall revealed how draconian aesthetic standards in supermarkets mean an estimated 30 per cent of vegetables never reach the shelves, how the average family bins £700-worth of food annually and how reckless fast food outlets like KFC throw away a million chickens a year.
After catering for a series of pop-up events since inception in the city in 2014 for its first full time restaurant the Real Junk Food Project has settled on The Wonder Inn, Manchester's new creative wellness centre based in a beautiful Grade II listed building on Shudehill.
To quote the RJFP: “The Wonder Inn's programme is filled with uplifting, creative and unique events, workshops and classes. Celebrating art on a local, regional and international level, The Wonder Inn's ethos is to raise the vibrations of its local community through creativity and the celebration of art.”
So the chef’s role at the Wonder Inn then transcends merely cooking meals for punters. Corin has plans to run workshops on using up seasonal gluts, making things like jams and sauerkrauts and holding monthly ticketed a la carte evenings, “where each time a different chef will be challenged to create a three-course meal from available provisions”.
That’s exciting enough, but the constant presence in the kitchens of Mary-Ellen McTague lifts the whole project into an amazing new phase.
To pledge support or find out more, visit realjunkfoodmanchester.co.uk