For most people a home-cooked Sunday lunch of artichoke and truffle soup, a medley of fish on braised endive and dark chocolate mousse all prepared by a Michelin-starred chef, would be lunch worth praying for. The guests invited to Michael Caines' monthly 'Sunday Service' at his Devonshire home are not required to pray, though if they wanted to they couldn't be better placed because Caines lives in a converted chapel, Trinity House. His kitchen is directly on the site of the original altar and, at his monthly Sunday Service, friends drink, eat and worship at the shrine of gourmet-quality home cooking from lunchtime into early evening.
Michael Caines, who lost his right arm in a road accident, is one of the best chefs cooking in Britain today. At only 34, he owns his own restaurant at the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter and is head chef at the two Michelin-starred restaurant in Gidleigh Park, a quintessentially English hotel of the type that Americans salivate over. He bought Trinity House in the peaceful village of Crockernwell just outside Exeter, two years ago, before the house price boom in the South West. He lives there with his fiancée Ruth and their three Siamese cats. The upstairs is still waiting to be decorated, but the living room, with its two large stained-glass windows, needed little to improve it. The design is spare and tranquil, the main colour coming from the windows. There is a white shagpile rug on the wooden floor, with white sofas facing towards a flash sound system and widescreen TV. At the moment it looks like a bachelor pad, but that will change in May, when their first child is due.
Caines works 16 hours a day, six days a week but, rather perversely, likes to spend his only day off cooking. 'It's almost like a busman's holiday,' he admits, 'but this is a million miles from work. I'm not doing it to make a statement. Ruth and I just enjoy entertaining.' (Unfortunately Ruth is feeling too ill to attend this Sunday's service). 'At home I can make a complete meal, whereas in a professional kitchen each person does a different element.' It also gives him the chance to try out new dishes, so his guests are rather jammy guinea pigs.
If you find yourself standing in a Michelin-starred chef's home kitchen and he asks you to chop, then there is nothing else for it but to make the standard restaurant kitchen reply: 'Yes chef.' But be warned: chefs keep their knives sharp even at home. I gashed my finger, bled everywhere, and was taken off kitchen duty which continued with Sunday service regulars David, his accountant, his wife Angela and Sonia (his PA) helping out. After months of work the kitchen was finished last December. Caines made sure that he was involved in the design process. The result is two ovens and acres of work surfaces.
Caines lost his right arm in 1994. He had been working hard and was driving to a christening and fell asleep at the wheel. The car hit the central barrier and rolled over. He only just survived the accident but his arm couldn't be saved. Caines was in hospital for six days and two weeks later turned up for work at Gidleigh Park where he had only recently been employed. 'It's just one of those things,' he says, stirring the soup. 'You can sit around feeling sorry for yourself or just get on with it.' He was given a prosthetic arm and, after a year of intense rehabilitation, was back in the kitchen full-time. 'It was tough, psychologically, to go from being a sporty, body-conscious man of 25...The experience made me a more compassionate and determined man. Life is short. I have an ability to feed people and it's lovely to think I've got a talent that makes a lot of people very happy.' I can second that. The artichoke and truffle soup was delicious, and, claims Caines, really easy to make.
At the age of three months Caines was adopted into a close Exeter family. It was a lively and warm household (his adoptive parents already had five children), one in which the family would all sit down together at mealtimes. Caines continues this tradition, cooking for 34 friends and family last Christmas. He has never met his real mother, who is English, or his Jamaican father. His adoptive parents encouraged him to take an academic route but Caines wanted to be a top end chef. To succeed he had to work with the best in the business.
He was a gifted cook. Raymond Blanc employed him at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, and from there he moved to France, first to work with the three Michelin-starred chef, Bernard Loiseau in Burgundy, and then to Joel Robuchon in Paris. Not a bad CV. What you notice about Caines is his drive. Raymond Blanc certainly spotted it, which is why he recommended that Caines replace chef Sean Hill at Gidleigh Park.
Caines had no problem returning to his home county to work. London doesn't appeal: 'It's a bit stagnant creatively because chefs tend to look at each other instead of looking further afield.' His food is classically based, with a lightness of texture and a depth of flavour that you would expect, but often not get, from that level of cooking. His views on food are mature, 'I'm interested in forging a new style but I'm a great believer in the fact that you don't know your future unless you know your past. How can you go forward without knowing where you've been? For me the driving force about food is whether people enjoy it. Forgetting my personal preferences, my job is to make at least 90 per cent of the people who come to Gidleigh satisfied.'
I first met Caines the night before Sunday service after his shift at Gidleigh Park. The hotel guests were raving about their suppers. If only they had had the chance to attend his Sunday service, where Caines has the freedom to cook exactly as he likes. We ate and drank wine until five o'clock and were all sorry once we had finished our last mouthful of chocolate mousse and white chocolate ice cream. Some might say that they would stick to a good old English roast, but I am a convert to gourmet Sundays.
· Gidleigh Park, Chagford, Devon, TQ13 8HH. £420 to £550 daily for double occupancy, £275 to £485 for single occupancy. All prices include dinner and breakfast. Dinner for non-residents is £70 for four courses and £75 for seven courses, lunch is £35 for three courses. Tel: 01647 432467, email: gidleighpark@gidleigh.co.uk, visit: gidleigh.com
Michael Caines at the Royal Clarence Hotel, Cathedral Yard, Exeter, EH1 1HD. Tel 01392 310031 michaelcaines.com
