Nigel Haworth
Head Chef, Northcote Manor

Nigel in the Northcote Manor kitchen; Nigel out on his bike, Sabden.

When you walk, run and cycle, it’s like the blinkers are taken off

Nigel Haworth is the Michelin-starred head chef at Lancashire’s beautiful Northcote Manor. Billed as a ‘restaurant with rooms’, the emphasis is firmly on high quality, local produce – showcasing the region’s enviable food heritage. His love of Pennine Lancashire is clear, from the landscape to the food and his beloved Blackburn Rovers.

Everyone travels in cars. You see nothing when you’re in a car. When you walk, run and cycle, it’s like the blinkers are taken off and you see so much more. You see houses you’ve never seen before, you see things in the hedgerow, you see animals…you see people again. Life on motorways is very blinkered, you don’t stop and talk to the people you pass. When you actually walk and cycle and go to one of the little cafés, everyone connects again.

And I think that’s where I think my food is important. It connects. You’ve got to connect with the land and that’s come about because of where I am. If I was in the city, it would be different and I’d be a different cook. The land influences so much of how I cook. You come across things and it inspires you and what you cook. You add that to your repertoire and you’ve developed another angle and to me that’s exciting. There’s always something around the corner, there’s always a new person to meet, there’s always an intriguing place to find.

My roots are firmly in the terrain of Lancashire. I worked in Switzerland for five years so I’ve seen a European side and that’s influenced the way I approach cooking but I’m very much inspired by the feel of Lancashire and the raw beauty of my surroundings. I can go over to Tarleton and see one of the best growing areas in the country; I can go up onto Beacon Fell and get fantastic cheeses and then I can go into the Trough of Bowland where all of my beef and lamb comes from. It’s very inspiring because I’ve got things all around me.

The food heritage of this part of Lancashire is very strong. Nowadays, people are interested in provenance – where things come from, why they’re there, what’s the heritage? That really interests me. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get the British White Cattle back to this area. It’s the indigenous breed so I want to see them back. They were at Whalley Abbey in the 1600s but Lord Assheton took the herd down to East Anglia. One of the big topics today is local food and produce. Beforehand, it was just British beef, but now you’ve got Hereford beef, Oxfordshire beef, British White beef; it brings colour to the area and a more interesting reason to go to that place.

There are lots of successful businesses in this part of Lancashire and there are lots of positives about running a business where we are. It’s a longer journey but perhaps it’s more rewarding and satisfying when you get there. It gives me a great deal of pride that Craig [Bancroft, co-proprietor of Northcote Manor] and myself have built a business over 25 years and that people associate with it and want to visit us. The great thing about cooking is that people enjoy it. There’s a huge amount of satisfaction involved and we’re very fortunate – we have a great place to work in. We fell in love with the place first, we didn’t go there to make money, that’s the truth, we fell in love with the place and we made a business out of it later.

I’m here to stay now. Even if I were lucky enough to make loads of money, I wouldn’t move away. I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else for the world. It’s where my heart is, it’s where my food roots are and I’ve so much that I still want to develop. It was never the masterplan to come back, it just happened… and then it felt right.

Every part on the UK has its characteristics and its intriguing bits and Lancashire’s no different. It has a real raw beauty. Lancashire is one of those places that was stereotyped by many visions of the 1940s and ’50s and that’s stayed with us, the cobbled streets and the chimneys and the clogs but that is part of our heritage. It’s this heritage that links into the raw beauty of Lancashire and makes it into the wonderful place it is. You’ve got to do a bit of digging and a bit of searching around but there’s so much going on around here. The intrigue of the area is there and it’s not that deep under the surface.

Northcote Manor
Langho
www.northcotemanor.com