DEREK MARSHALL, spent much of his early career as a chef honing his skills in Europe.
From the East End, he left school with no qualifications and joined a youth training programme, the start of a culinary journey of discovery that would take him to the Channel Islands, the French Alps and Spain.
Inspired and motivated by his time working abroad; Derek returned home to Glasgow with a new appreciation of fresh, seasonal ingredients. He was head chef at Rogano and then Papingo in the early 1990s. Seafood had become the main focus in the kitchen and he was ready to introduce his own ideas. Gamba was the result, a restaurant that opened in October 1998.
As he starts his 25th year on West George Street, what is Gamba’s enduring appeal?
“I think it is consistency, determination and passion for what I do. I just think you put out your stall in a restaurant and it either works or it doesn’t work. It’s the food and the atmosphere where people feel relaxed and the staff that will look after you. This isn’t the cheapest place to eat, but it’s not the most expensive. You won’t leave hungry,” Derek said.
The period Gamba has been part of the city centre social scene has been one of transformation in Glasgow hospitality.
Derek continued: “There weren’t many good places to go when we started, especially for seafood. The change has been quite dramatic. The other side of that is there are still very few independent restaurants in the city. In terms of more recent changes, we are seeing a lot of young people coming to Gamba.”
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The summer has seen city centre booking boosted by tourism.
Derek added: “We have a lot of foreign visitors, particularly Americans.”
He explained that the business lunch is also having a renaissance.
Derek said: “There’s a whole mix of people that come in at lunchtime but we are seeing more business bookings now that office workers have returned to this part of town.”
His favourite style of food is Japanese cooking and that influence has been there from day one at Gamba. He continues to prepare dishes the way he started.
“What keeps Gamba going I think is the fact that people know they can come in and get really fresh fish cooked the way that I cook it. There are no surprises but that’s why we keep getting repeat customers.”
They will have a night for friends of the restaurant next month to mark the anniversary, and while the year so far, particularly weekends, has provided encouragement, Derek is conscious of storm clouds on the horizon.
Derek explained: “Food costs are ridiculous. We don’t know if we will have as many visitors into the winter. We are in a good location, but it’s still a basement restaurant, we can’t just rely on footfall in the area. We’re in a good position but I’m a bit sceptical about where things are going. Saturday here was absolutely jumping, but is that going to continue?”
The all-time star dish from the last two and a half decades? “You know what I’m going to say don’t you” he laughed.
“It’s our fish soup” a perennial part of the menu, consisting of Portland crabmeat, stem ginger, coriander and prawn dumpling.
“Apart from that I would have to say the lemon sole Meuniere”, they serve it with brown shrimp, capers and parsley. “It’s just a classic dish, still our most popular main course.”
COOKING FOR THE QUEEN
CHEF John Higgins first experience in a kitchen was as a culinary apprentice at the Michelin Star restaurant Malmaison at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow during the 1970s.
In his late teens he moved on to the Gleneagles Hotel, where he would write to Buckingham Palace hoping to realise his ambition of cooking for the Royal Family.
“One day my mother phoned me from Glasgow and said ‘There’s a letter here for you from Buckingham Palace’.”
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He was interviewed in London and hired as a Junior Royal Cook, a period of his career when he had “the time of his life” in a role that saw him prepare meals at the Balmoral estate, on the Royal Yacht Britannia and in the kitchens at the Queen’s official residence.
Now a star of The Food Network in Canada and a former director of the renowned George Brown Culinary School in Toronto, John, who was born in Bellshill and maintains ties with the hospitality industry in Glasgow, has been recalling his time as a chef for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
“I’m really sad. I think it’s the end of a dynasty, a part of history,” he told Canadian television.
“She was the glue that kept the whole thing together, the binder that kept the pages together.”
Requests to the kitchen were usually simple: “Queen Elizabeth, in particular, made sure there was no garlic in the dishes. They didn’t eat garlic, probably as they were constantly meeting and greeting people.”
He said the family were down to earth and kind.
He added: “I was very lucky to have worked for the Royals.”
He described the Queen as gracious, regal and elegant.
“She liked duck, mangoes and chocolate cake,” Higgins said.
“The royals wanted good, local food, cooked well. It was just really good produce cooked well with consistency.”
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