I’ve always loved working in the city, but I also love going home to the countryside,’ says Paul Askew, who this month celebrates 10 years of his own food haven, The Art School in Liverpool.
‘It’s still within the Liverpool city region, but there’s so many green areas and green spaces, filled with produce, all around us. There’s the most incredible beef, lamb, pork, and the rare breed Hebridean hogget that we get from Callum Edge at Edge & Sons on the Wirral. Then of course we have Ward’s Fish, with boats going out on the Dee into Liverpool Bay to land cod and sea bass each day, or there’s Peter Jones in Hooton and his watercress and courgette flowers.
‘He’s currently growing herbs to order for me, and three varieties of beetroot – the golden, the purple and the candy stripe ones. I can pick them up on the way into work. I drive in with a car full of watercress, courgette flowers, beetroot, tomatoes, cucumber… it was growing that morning – by lunchtime it’s on the menu.
Paul is a much - loved chef and is widely regarded as a person who nurtures culinary talents and has driven the food scene in the region. He has been working as an ambassador for Wirral’s beautiful produce for more than 40 years.
We have world-c lass ingredients on our own doorstep, and my mission had always been to show that off,’ he says. ‘I imagine sticking a pin in the restaurant and doing a 30 -mile or so circle around it. That gives us some great produce, including into Cheshire and North Wales, but predominantly around the greenbelt of the city, so Wirral and all around.’
For the last 10 years Paul has been championing that culture at The Art School, and before that he did the same at The Philharmonic in Liverpool, then at Hope Street Hotel and London Carriage Works. He’s planning to celebrate the anniversary with a series of special events, highlighting his two main passions – beautiful regional produce and talented hospitality professionals.
For Paul, who started off as a teenager washing pots and peeling vegetables at Thornton Hall Hotel, it’s been a journey that’s taken him to New York and Singapore,
before returning almost full circle to the area where he grew up.
We need to give people a proper career, with a 40-hour contract, four days a week, with
opportunities to learn and develop, and real progression.’
It’s something Paul also champions through his role as president of Wirral Met College alumni, and in his more recent Liverpool food venture, The Barnacle Kitchen, which he opened in December 2021 with his son, Harry.
‘I was aware there was a story that wasn’t really told in our food culture, which came about through Merseyside’s maritime history, and that being the reason why we
became such a hospitable and friendly place.
to come to New Zealand with lamb, or he’d come from Uruguay and Argentina with beef. Or he’d be in upstate New York with mixed cargoes of anything from apples to all food stuffs, and then the Caribbean with bananas and sugar. He’d be everywhere. And it, of course, would all come back to the city.
And we brought a lot of learning back with food and with culture and people. I wanted to celebrate that with Barnacle, which we opened as part of Duke Street Market.’
Paul is also running a series of pop-ups at new supper club venue Lost, in the old outbuildings at Claremont Farm, Bebington, Wirral. ‘It gives you the feel that you’re right in the countryside,’ says Paul. ‘They’ve converted this wonderful old sandstone bar. We’ve done The Art School at Lost and that was a massive success, and some Barnacle popups there, with lovely food and maritime history and all the international flavours.’
theartschoolrestaurant.co.uk
