This festive season, we’re delighted to bring you a special Q&A with Chris Eden, executive chef at the renowned Watergate Bay.
With a career blending creativity, passion, and a love for seasonal Cornish produce, Chris has become a celebrated name in the culinary world.
What’s your earliest food memory?
Making Victoria sponge cakes and saffron buns with my Nan from the age of about five or six years old.
Did you always want to be a chef?
Yes! From about the age of nine, I never wanted to be anything else. It was the only thing that interested me.
What’s your favourite thing about working in Cornwall?
I love all the suppliers and produce we have access to here and what each season brings.
Aside from your own, what Cornish restaurants would you recommend?
The Kingswood bar & restaurant in St Austell, I’m really looking forward to seeing it re-open after their devastating fire, it’s going to be mega. Tom Bradbury is brilliant.
Who are your favourite Cornish food producers/suppliers?
Phillip Warren, Wing of St Mawes and Chocolarder.
What one piece of advice would you give to aspiring chefs?
To be patient and to listen, it’s a marathon not a sprint.
Do you have any interesting/unusual Christmas food traditions from your family?
Our Christmas eve meal tradition is always crispy duck and pancakes, and always a Bailey’s coffee on Christmas morning.
