Success on a plate

Chef Direct's produce is caught all over the world

When you're treating yourself to a meal at a posh restaurant, do you ever wonder where they get the ingredients?

We've all seen Jamie Oliver scampering round some East End market, but is that really how top chefs get their hands on a fresh halibut or some mallards?

They're more likely to use the services of someone like Steve Downey.

His Bristol-based company, Chef Direct, sources produce from all over the world and delivers it to many of the country's leading restaurants.

Accident

It's a business that Steve, who used to be an accountant, got into almost by accident.

Steve Downey: in a very competitive market

He got chatting to Raymond Blanc at an event and discovered the chef was having trouble getting salmon.

Steve, a keen fisherman, supplied him with some and things took off from there.

A decade on, Chef Direct now deals with 100 restaurants, and even supplies food to 10 Downing Street.

Competitive

Customers include top London eateries such as Le Gavroche, Clarke's, Orso and Chez Bruce - but it can be a cut-throat business.

"It's pretty severe," says Steve. "There aren't many people doing it but the ones who are are very good at it. It's like anything else when you get half a dozen people and a limited market - it's very, very competitive."

Restaurants send in their orders late in the evening and Steve's team will prepare them in the small hours for delivery in his fleet of vans.

Orders go out early in the morning

Visit at 5am on a typical day, and you might see tuna and venison being cut into steaks, partridges cleaned and prepared and ginger and lime soup being made for a Japanese restaurant.

Steve lets his customers know what's available and also tries to meet their requests. Sometimes he'll urge them to try something unusual, such as teal or lampreys.

"You can spend hours on the phone, out walking, visiting places, talking to people, trying to track down the people who are fishing for it or farming it or harvesting it," he says.

"If you had set your heart on a particular product, I could spend weeks looking for it."

Contacts

As the business has developed, so has Steve's network of contacts. He might get word from Norway that woodcocks are making their annual migration to the UK.

A quick call to a gun club and the birds will soon be heading for his Bristol depot.

Steve Markwick has been using Chef Direct for years. At his restaurant in Bristol city centre he has a policy of using British produce.

Steve Markwick: "It's important to support our local industries"

"I think it's important to support our local industries," he explains, "and we are very much into having produce which is not intensively caught or reared.

"I like to be able to identify all the sources of my food, even down to the vegetables, which we grow ourselves."

In more than 20 years as a chef, Steve has seen High Street outlets decline, so is grateful to have suppliers like Chef Direct and to see a boom in farmers' markets.

"Using the best raw produce possible, it's very easy to cook, it has good flavour, it doesn't need much doing to it," he says. "You just cook it and it has great taste."

Online

The fish and meat served in top restaurants is also available to the public, through the internet-based Club Chef Direct.

Members pay an annual subscription and can get produce prepared to their requirements and delivered the next day.

Specially made sauces and other accompaniments are also available, along with recipes and tips from celebrity chefs.

Steve Downey sees it as the way forward for his business.

"We can only provide the level of service we are providing to chefs if we stay small. If you become too big, you lose it," he says.

"So the natural way to progress is to try to sell the same produce to the public and that's what we like to do."