MARVELLOUS MARGOT! ❤️
@margotehenderson for
@t_o_o_g_o_o_d
Words and Pictures John William
Margot Henderson is an icon of generous, unprissy British food and hospitality. From running The French House with hubby Fergus in the 90s, opening Shoreditch stalwart Rochelle Canteen (twenty-one years going strong) and more recently creating the food for a resurrected 17th Century pub in Batcombe… she describes her approach as “sensible.” Sensible yes, but also sensual, sensational and simply superb. Margot’s way is probably best summed-up in the title of her recipe book: You’re All Invited. Now there’s a maxim for life lived to the maximum.
Toogood meets Margot between Shoreditch and Somerset, flush in the afterglow of “Pie Week.” As it says on the tin: a week of pastry-cased pleasure that saw a roving roster of guest chefs serving up their best at The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe. Beef shin and bone marrow (Robin Gill), spiced pastilla (Sam and Sam Clark), veal, cotechino and morel (Oli Brown.) And then there’s the concrete cast of a tinned Fray Bentos pie that sits on Henderson’s mantelpiece. It’s one of many works by the artist Sarah Lucas you’ll see dotted around Margot’s home, bumping lumps with Spike Milligan paperbacks, pebbles and postcards. The Henderson house is full of books, sculpture, paintings, ephemera that tell a story of radical British food and radical British art. A tornado that Margot and her husband Fergus have been at the centre of for thirty-odd years. Pastry, pubes and public houses…
