Dragon Interview: Tom Oldroyd – Local Boy Made Good

Published on: 18 Oct, 2016
Updated on: 18 Oct, 2016

Tom Oldroyd

As a teenager Tom Oldroyd earnt money washing up in pubs around Guildford. Today, at 34, he has his own critically acclaimed London restaurant. Alice Fowler caught up with him over lunch at Oldroyd, on Upper Street in Islington, to discuss his path from Guildford schoolboy to restaurateur and chef.

Your restaurant has been open just over a year – how’s it going so far?

We couldn’t have hoped for a better first year. Twenty years ago there were so many independent restaurants on Upper Street it was nicknamed “Supper Street”. Then the rents went up and only chains could afford to move in. It’s refreshing now that new independent places like us are opening up. Because we’re small and independent we can change the menu easily and our price point is low. We’ve got a lot of regulars already.

On the menu – grilled sardine, roast tomato and oregano tartine

How did you get interested in food?

I always loved cooking. I used to run home from school to watch Ready, Steady Cook. I was fascinated with simple recipes, easy things that would impress my mum. While my friends were playing football I’d be going up and down the farmers’ market in Guildford High Street looking at different vegetables and game. Then I’d go home and cook for my friends – something for them to eat when they’d finished football.

So you were at school in Guildford?

At St Nicolas first of all, where my mum was my teacher – ‘Mrs Mum’. Then I went to Lanesborough with my brother. He went to the Royal Grammar School and I went to Guildford County. My mum and dad still live on The Mount, and I go back whenever I can. A lot of my school friends still live around Guildford. Most of them have come here to the restaurant.

How did you learn to cook?

It was me with my books really. I was fascinated with the process of cooking. One of the first things I ever cooked was Brian Turner’s pea and garlic soup. It was butter, frozen peas, garlic – things I knew I could stock up on. If I was feeling decadent I could add some cream. You just roast the garlic in a pan, slip the skins off, add the peas and stock and blitz. And it was delicious. I realised I could feed myself up easily. We ate pea and garlic soup every day for a long time. And everyone enjoyed it. I started on soups, then canapés, then roast dinners.

I did a GSCE in home economics – I got a ‘B’, I think. It seemed to involve a lot of macaroni. I wouldn’t say I was academic. I had a short attention span, I enjoyed the social side of school.

Is your whole family creative?

“Nan” -Elsie Oldroyd – “I remember her Sunday roasts well.”

I’d say we are. My parents met at amateur dramatics. My elder brother, Will, has just premiered his first feature film at the Toronto international film festival and my sister, Olivia, is a senior exhibitions manager at the V&A. My nan, Elsie May, was a great cook and I remember her Sunday roasts well. She was very neat and tidy, which is what I love about a kitchen. Everything has to be in a certain order – I’m a bit OCD to be honest. Tidy and creative: that’s quite an Oldroyd thing.

How did your career begin?

From the age of fifteen I was washing up in pubs around Guildford, mostly the Kings Head on the Stoke Road. When I finished at Guildford County School I went to work at the Forte Crest hotel (now the Holiday Inn) near Tesco. I went straight in as a breakfast waiter. I was there seven years in total. I did a year as a breakfast waiter, getting there at 6am, taking tea and coffee orders. I loved it. But I never thought about being a chef. I didn’t know how I would fit into the bigger picture. To me chefs were people in hot rooms, microwaving things. I still wasn’t thinking of being a chef, but I loved the hotel. I loved the theatre of it.

Prawn and courgette tagliarini anyone?

After a year or so they put me on a management course. I became bar and lounge manager doing weddings, conferences and banquets. I realised I wanted to work in hospitality but I still didn’t know where. So I went to university as a mature student and did international hospitality management at Surrey University.

Lakeside Restaurant, School of Management, University of Surrey

One day a week we had to work at the Lakeside restaurant at the University of Surrey. That’s where I started working in a proper kitchen as a chef and I loved it. I still didn’t really want to be a chef, but I was getting closer and closer. I knew it would be long hours, I knew it was hard work. I also knew I loved cooking and food, and the response I got from cooking food.

What was your lucky break?

Through a friend of my brother’s I got a job at Alastair Little on Frith Street in the middle of Soho. It was a small kitchen, cooking fresh seasonal food, and I could work directly with the head chef and learn as much as possible. I just worked for years. I don’t remember doing anything else apart from eating and sleeping.

I became a commis chef, worked up to chef de partis and sous chef. By the end I was running the kitchen with the executive chef. Then it was time to leave. I went to Bocca di Lupo, an Italian restaurant that was opening in Soho, and then after six months I was approached by Russell Norman and Richard Beatty, who were looking to open a small Italian restaurant in Soho and needed a head chef.

It was what I wanted. Venetian was the idea, food influenced by Venice and New York, and it worked out perfectly. In 2009 the first Polpo opened on Beak Street, just as the recession hit. People wanted a cheap, fun restaurant and it was packed from day one. In five years we opened nine restaurants. It was exhausting. By the end I was mostly doing paperwork. I knew it was time to take a break, so I went travelling for a year, to Japan and America.

What about your personal life?
By then I’d met someone, Meryl Fernandes, who was a regular at one of the Polpo restaurants, Spuntino in Soho. Eight months later we were engaged. I proposed to her in America during my year off.

“I fell in love with this place instantly. It was small it was bijou…”

So that year away was important?
It took all that time for my mind to relax. I realised that what I had wanted to do from the beginning was to open my own restaurant. Then it was a question of finding somewhere.

I fell in love with this place instantly. It was small, it was bijou, but I knew I could make something out of it. Before it had been a traditional sandwich bar. My dad and I completely gutted it and built it back up. I designed and built the kitchen and the bar. We put the stairs in. It took four months from when we signed to when we opened.

“I designed and built the kitchen and bar…”

Meryl runs a lifestyle shop in Hackney and she does a lot with our design and the marketing. ‘Royd’ means a clearing in the wood, and that was what we wanted – a clearing in the heart of Islington. I knew that the walls had to be blue, the wood had to be oak, there needed to be lots of plants. She’s helped with all of that. We’ll get married at some point. When I have a restaurant big enough to get married in, that’s when it will happen.

I still write the menus…

Do you still find time to cook?

Absolutely. A lot more at the beginning but I have an incredible head chef which has allowed me to concentrate on other aspects of the restaurant. I still write the menus but you’re as likely to find me working the floor these days as cooking in the kitchen. Having an open kitchen allows me to almost be everywhere at the same time.

What about your plans – will you roll out the Oldroyd brand?

Proposals are coming in to open similar things – and not so similar things. We want to grow and develop. The kitchen is under the stairs at the moment – it’s so small you can touch both walls with your hands. It would be nice to have something a bit bigger. But it would be a group of restaurants, rather than a chain.

Any chance you might open a restaurant in Guildford?
Never say never. I love Guildford, it’s beautiful, but there aren’t many independent restaurants. While I was growing up Al Vicolo, a little Italian restaurant on Swan Lane, was the only independent place I knew of. I keep my eyes open, I’m always interested to see what’s happening.

And any advice for aspiring young chefs?
Just work, get your head down. Cook a lot. That’s the only way to do it. Read loads and eat loads. Work your way up from the bottom. Just graft it, really.