King of the Grill
The BBQ biography of Richard Turner stands rib to rib with the finest pitmasters, and now, when not tending his Devon veg patch, you’ll find him at Bodean’s. RUPERT BATES shares a smokehouse platter
Richard Turner holds a special place in BBQ magazine’s heart. The chef, butcher and restaurateur would doubtless tell us to stop being sentimental and pass the brisket and bourbon.
The reason? Turner was the very first person this magazine interviewed when the pilot edition was launched in 2020. When your CV lists Meatopia, Turner & George, Blacklock and Hawksmoor, it’s not difficult to see why we targeted Turner for our first profile. Now, five years on, he bestrides Bodean’s, as chef director of the BBQ smokehouse group.
Five years ago, we met at the Hawksmoor restaurant in Borough, a converted Victorian hops warehouse opposite Borough Market. When Turner first ate at Hawksmoor they messed up his steak twice, so presented him with a raw one to cook himself and he gave the chefs a grilling lesson, later becoming the restaurant group’s executive chef.
He won’t be giving the Bodean’s pit boss lessons anytime soon, for he believes the BBQ meat from the smokers is “as good as anything in the USA”.
“I haven’t done anything with the BBQ meat since starting here. I’ve switched the menu about a bit and changed some sauces. But Bodean’s customers don’t like change. Some of them have been coming for over 20 years and they know what they like.”
That includes Americans drawn to its three London smokehouses to test the Bodean’s claim to be ‘the best BBQ this side of the Atlantic’. The menu continues: ‘We take our smoking process seriously, embracing the Kansas City low and slow method to achieve deep, smoky flavours. We operate five top-secret Ole Hickory smokers that run 24/7, ensuring our meats are smoked anywhere between 14 and 24 hours.’
Time to taste, not just read, the menu. It has to be the sharing platter of beef rib, baby back pork ribs, beef brisket, Carolina pulled pork, Texas hot link sausage, vinegar slaw, house pickles and Texas toast.
“Bodean’s is an institution and I’m staying true to what makes it special. The new menu delivers on authentic flavours that stay true to the craft and culture of barbecue, using produce sourced from trusted farms and suppliers that prioritise animal welfare and traditional farming techniques.”
Turner has retreated from the daily hustle and bustle of London where Deptford was home, and headed down to Devon, where he potters about in his garden, throwing meats, fish and vegetables on his Ox grill.
“Scallops, asparagus, tomato, leeks, they all work wonderfully well over fire.”
It sounds an idyllic pastoral scene, but Turner has not morphed into Alan Titchmarsh with a beard and camo shorts just yet; the London meat scene in the city of his birth is too powerful a scent for smoking royalty. Remember, this is the man who only joined the Army boxing team because you got steak for breakfast.
As well as Bodean’s, there is of course Turner & George, the finest meat online and over the butcher’s counter – and yes there are BBQ boxes to purchase. I’d send mine to Devon and race down to the West Country to meet him. I’ll bring the bourbon Rich, you do the cooking.
His BBQ biography is hard to beat. Turner was a co-founder of Meatopia in the UK – that festival of meat, drink, fire and music brought over from the USA, having been originally founded in New York by the late, great food writer Josh Ozersky. Turner will be cooking at Tobacco Dock in London’s Wapping this year, with all the dishes cooked over wood or charcoal.
“That balance of smoke and fire. The salt to sear the meat, the charcoal, the aromas – slow- grown meat, slow cooked. Cooking over live fire is primal.”
It is easy to label Turner the king of carnivores, but he actually argues we eat too much meat. He told me back in 2020 how the influx of cheap meat meant ‘something unsustainable and unethical is going on’. He is actually very much an omnivore, as his Devon veg patch will testify, but mutter the word ‘hog’ under your breath and be prepared for a homage to the pig; he even wrote a book called Hog.
Let’s take you all the way back to the start of his culinary career and Le Gavroche, that Mayfair institution now sadly closed. Turner, once of the Parachute Regiment, was on several private security details with VIPs dining in the restaurant, back in the day when it was run by both Albert Roux and Michel Roux Jr and became a huge admirer of their food.
“One day, I approached Albert to work in the restaurant but was told no. I kept asking and eventually got a job and somehow survived a year there.” The list goes on. He worked for Pierre Koffmann at La Tante Claire in Chelsea and Harveys, a Wandsworth restaurant then run by a young Marco Pierre White.
He cooked abroad, including in France with Joel Robuchon and Alain Ducasse, bought The Albion pub in Islington and hero-worshipped Fergus Henderson with his nose-to-tail cooking at St John Restaurant in Clerkenwell. The barbecue brilliance of Pitt Cue Co, with Tom Adams another hero, followed, co-authoring the Pitt Cue Co cookbook. Foxlow, Blacklock –they are all badges on his grilling apron.
Turner loves to see the rise in British BBQ and young live-fire chefs doing great things, too modest to recognise that he was a pioneer, an original fire starter, popularising this style of cooking in the UK.
Turner, as we wonder if there is room for a smoked turkey bun with barbecue mayonnaise, slaw and pickles, describes himself as: ‘Ex this and ex that, currently a cook, butcher, restaurateur, author, entrepreneur, itinerant ne’er do well and vagabond.’ I’m surprised he has time for the last two, but it explains why he is mighty fine company, whether that is grilling vegetables in his Devon garden, or checking on the Bodean’s brisket in the hickory smokers.
Images: Bodean’s
