Joe Baker – Jersey Boy and Chef Patron at No 10

Photography by Holly Smith
Words by Anna Hafsteinsson

It’s a sunny, post ‘lockdown’ morning in July when I meet Joe Baker at No 10, his restaurant in St. Helier, Jersey’s main town and port. 

 You might recognise the young chef if you tuned in to watch the last two series of The Great British Menu on BBC 2 when Joe flew the flag for Jersey’s great produce. Today, he seems a more relaxed figure than the one we saw on screen. The extreme pressures of the show tested the nerves of some of the UK’s most talented chefs in response to a brief which asked them to create a number of dishes celebrating the best of British Children’s Literature. Competition was fierce and Joe just missed out on getting a dish to the final banquet. But he seems at peace with the outcome having won the regional South-West heat and scoring an elusive ‘ten’ for one of his dishes - an intricately layered starter, designed to resemble a forest floor, inspired by Enid Blyton’s book The Magic Faraway Tree.

Of the food at No 10 he says “The level of complexity is very much behind the scenes here. We don’t do things in a showy way. It’s quite esoteric, but on the plate we exercise restraint. I like the food to be quite direct.” This lack of ‘show,’ in a competition where chefs often use props and artifice to amp up the wow factor of a plate of food, may be why Joe missed out on getting a dish to the Great British Menu banquet. 

Joe had shown an interest in cooking from a young age but had never really considered it as a career. After graduating from Durham University he spent some time travelling and tested his appetite for the industry by working in kitchens along the way. The fire was stoked and he went on to find roles in high end restaurants in Spain and then London. Of his time working in London Joe says: “It was fantastic to have experience in those kitchens, but I didn’t really enjoy the lifestyle. It was intense, with long hours and late nights, very unhealthy. A lot of chefs need the hustle and bustle and the intensity of the city to get inspired but, for me, it’s really the opposite. I need that time out and opportunity to just get outside. It’s what inspires me to cook and it’s why I came back to Jersey.”

 The island of Jersey is a renowned and reputable finance centre, but Joe is keen to ensure that the island that he grew up in is known for the many other things that drew him back: “I feel really proud of this place and I don’t want it to be known only as a finance centre.” Joe talks fondly of his grandmother’s house on the East Coast of the island (which is exposed to one of the largest tidal ranges in the world) and where, as children, he and his brother and sister would go hunting for razor clams: “When I look at that landscape now I just think of those saline, salty flavours. It’s a landscape that can really stir the imagination.”

“When I look at that landscape now I just think of those saline, salty flavours. It’s a landscape that can really stir the imagination.”

Jersey did not escape the reaches of COVID-19 and the hospitality industry here, including No 10, has been hard hit by lockdown. Joe used the imposed time out of the restaurant kitchen to embrace the outdoor island life, with early morning sea swims and suppers cooked at home. He says “the joy of shelling peas at home or scrubbing the soil off Jersey royal potatoes cannot be underestimated! This period of lockdown has made me more committed to sticking to my guns. We’ve now made changes to the business that I’ve wanted to make for a while and that I’ve perhaps been too scared to make.” No 10 has been open for a month since lockdown ended and diners have been eager to escape their home kitchens and enjoy a night out, delighting in Joe’s three courses from The Great British Menu, on offer for a limited time only. Photographer Holly, who went along to shoot for this article, got to devour ‘Paddington Bear’s Emergency Marmalade Sandwich’ and I admit to a sharp pang of envy at this news. I’m hoping to squeeze in for a sitting to get my hands on ‘Jeremy Fisher’s Butterfly Sandwich’ - a generous helping of picked Jersey crab atop a buttery, butterfly-shaped crumpet. 

As a small island of just nine by five miles, Jersey imports produce through necessity, but Joe speaks with enthusiasm about the local produce he uses where he can. “There are so many small farmers doing great things here, like organic Anneville Farm, and there’s all this amazing beef that I showcased on the Great British Menu. Now, you go to a Michelin Star restaurant in London, and everyone is trying to get their hands on Jersey beef! A lady in Gorey (one of Jersey’s seaside villages) has been growing all these incredible herbs and flowers for us. It’s a really exciting time to be cooking here.”

I ask Joe if there are any ingredients or flavour combinations he always returns to at No 10; “I think the sea is the most important aspect to me. Even with meat dishes, we often end up pairing fish and meat together. Right now we’ve got a dish of local John Hackett Pork. We slow cook the belly for two days and then we serve it with a broth of razor clams. That briny, salty sea flavour with that rich fatty pork is so delicious. It’s the same thing with beef and oyster - and scallops cooked in beef fat are so delicious.”

For a chef concerned with spending time in and around nature, ethics and sustainability are understandably important to Joe. It seems that he’s ready to see a shake up in the industry as a whole; “In order to help itself, everyone has to have guts and be a bit less scared. Yes, it costs more to use a free-range chicken but you have to make that decision and stand up for it. You might have to charge another pound for it, but you’re doing the right thing.” Jersey’s fishing industry is also under pressure and Joe explains the issue. Following Brexit, there are fears that French fishing boats (particularly trawlers) may no longer have access to UK waters and will disperse into the Granville Bay and deplete stocks for Jersey fishermen. Joe says

“In Jersey there are guys hand-diving scallops, but there are still all the dredgers. If they were out there doing that to the land, people would be horrified, but because it’s out of sight, it’s easy for people to ignore.” 

It’s not all doom and gloom though, Joe is keeping a close eye on food sustainability initiatives like Pesky Fish, a new online marketplace he tells me about which enables fishermen to sell their catch directly to home cooks, chefs and merchants alike - reducing fish waste and encouraging the eating of species which are in abundance, but may not be well known.

I ask Joe about his ambitions for the future; “One day I’d definitely love to move to a restaurant in the countryside or by the sea. And to really put Jersey on a plate. I don’t think anyone has really done justice to the island yet. Everyone talks about it, but no one so far has actually told the story of Jersey - with all its potential and possibilities.” If there is a man for that job, I think it could well be Joe Baker, Jersey boy.