A round of applause for Chef Marcin

Everyone at Contini was delighted to hear that our Senior Head Chef, Marcin, had been invited to join the Chef Alliance last month.

Runby Slow Food UK, the Chef Alliance actively engages British chefs to champion small-scale producers and promote good quality, local and sustainably-produced food. The Chef Alliance invites chefs who share the Slow Food ethos which encourages them to use seasonal forgotten foods, helping raise awareness of these traditional British products.

Marcin has been a member of Team Contini for seven years. Starting as a pastry chef and gradually moving through the ranks to eventually run the kitchen at The Scottish Cafe and Cannonball. Not only is he a gem in every way, he is continuously supporting the team, fully energised, enthusiastic and always willing to do go the extra mile! He is always researching authentic and new ingredients for our recipes. All in all, he’s a STAR.

To commemorate his inauguration Marcin was asked to man the Slow Food Stall on Saturday morning at the Castle Terrace Farmers Market – a very early start but a great success.

Marcin made the most delicious pot of Richard Briggs’ very special Shetland Lamb stew. The native Shetland Sheep is recognised as a PDO product which means it has specially-protected status to promote its unique qualities, specifically it being born, raised and slaughtered in the Shetland Islands – its home for thousands of years. Shetland Lamb is also part of the Slow Food Ark of Taste Ingredients List for Scotland.

It’s a really exciting time for the Ark of Taste here in Edinburgh. Slow Food has a global target to include another 1000 products in the Ark by this month and over 200 possible items have been identified in Scotland already! This are over 20 unique and wonderful foods that could be lost forever if we don’t take action. Everyone at Contini is incredibly passionate about this and we regularly host Slow Food events at all our venues.

Marcin slow-cooked his lamb with barley, herbs and cavolo nero from the Contini Kitchen Garden and finished it with apple. He then served it with a fresh broad bean and mint salsa which also came from our garden out in Lasswade. It was no surprise that the crowds flocked to the Slow Food stall and Marcin’s stew pot was soon empty after satisfying hungry tummies of happy visitors.

Suzanne, our Executive Chef, and Carina popped along for moral support of course – and perhaps a wee bit of heckling…but all in the best possible taste of course!

A huge congratulations to Marcin again on all his hard work which is most definitely paying off.