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MEET DAVE CRITCHELY
Let us introduce you to our friend David J Critchley , ‘ Chef Dave ’, Executive Head Chef at Lu Ban in Liverpool .
Chef Dave has worked in kitchens since the age of 15 and has led some of the North West ’ s premier restaurants . These include Alma de Cuba ( Michelin Guide ), The Noble House ( Michelin Guide ) and Australasia ( Michelin Guide ). He was the Executive Head Chef at The London Carriage Works , fine dining restaurant of the highly decorated Hope Street Hotel ( 2AA Rosette , Michelin Guide ) before opening Lu Ban , Liverpool as their Executive Chef Director . He has catered for the Liverpool Football Club team for four years and has a impressive list of the biggest names in sports , music and film on his ' cooked for ' list . His services are often personally requested when international A-listers visit the city .
In 2019 , Chef Dave took a somewhat different direction and was selected as the last ever apprentice of the world-famous Chinese chef , Master Wu , and spent time in Tianjin perfecting traditional Chinese cookery . Recently you may have seen Chef Dave on BBC2 as he has twice been selected to represent the North West on ‘ The Great British Menu ’ 2021 and 2022 , as well as Channel 4s ' Come Dine With Me The Professionals ' last month . It ' s been a very busy month for Dave as his debut cook book ‘ Cherry Blossom ’ has just been released and Lu Ban restaurant has just been named ‘ The Taste of England ’ Gold award winner at the Visit England awards beating off some incredibly stiff competition to win the coveted award .
We caught up with Dave to find out how it all started for him , what makes him tick and what we can expect next from our local award winning chef .
What is your earliest / fondest food memory ? I ' ve always enjoyed my food and have always had a big appetite ( so I ' m told ). I have so many fond food related memories as a child of raiding the family buffets at special occasions , so much so I used to have to be held back to ensure everyone else got to eat first ( he laughs ). I used to love visiting my Grandad ' s house in Southport and tasting his homemade Gala pie , chunky chips and marrowfat peas ... the smells and the crackle of the chip fryer I can still picture now ! My favourite memories would be Sunday roasts though , all sat round the table as a family and no TV allowed ! The full roast dinner with all the trimmings used to amaze me ! So many flavours , textures , condiments , even as a young lad I knew there was something magical about a traditional Sunday Roast ! The only downfall was the doing the dishes later .
Where did your culinary journey begin ? At the age of 15 I wandered into my local pub ‘ The Halfway House ’ in Childwall and asked about some weekend work while I was in school to supplement my several paper round ( the benefits of being a newsagents son !)
And was that where the Chef career started ? Oh not at all , although this early introduction into kitchen life absolutely fascinated me , I loved every aspect of it from day 1 . At this point I was still steadfast on my ‘ glittering ’ career in Design and Illustration ! It would be several years later after GCSEs , A levels , an Art Foundation course and upon finishing a Degree course in Illustration for Children ' s publishing would I leap straight into the frying pan of full time chef work . It was by this point I was totally obsessed with the kitchen and its manic existence .
We could say your plates are now your canvasses ! Your artwork shines through on your dishes , has that training impacted how you work as a chef and would you ever go back to Illustration ? Yes I suppose it ' s very similar processes involved if I think about it . I use everything I have learnt in my life especially my art training when composing plates . I like to use colour and textures to make the food as visually appealing as possible that ’ s really important in my style of cuisine . I would ’ ve loved to have illustrated my cook book myself but ultimately didn ’ t have enough time ... and yes I ' m not getting any younger , so when I finally hang up the apron , I ' d love to get the pens and pencils out again , maybe even write a couple of kids books with my son Joshua and illustrate them too !
You mentioned your cook book , tell us a little about it ! It must be a big moment for a chef publishing their own book ? Oh definitely ! Opening that first pallet of books as they arrived at the restaurant was a massive moment for me with everything that had happened over the last few years , closing the restaurant through lockdown and the battle we had to keep the business alive through that period , it really was huge ! Just picking up that book in my hands and knowing that the blood , sweat and tears of a crazy few years of my life was encapsulated in those pages ... It ' s hard to find words for that feeling ! Cherry Blossom was used as the name as it reminded me of a fresh start after Covid , after the lockdowns , a new spring , a new start to the year . It contains the story of my career and a lot of the recipes that have brought LuBan to where it is now and I ' m incredibly proud of it . It ' s already been ordered in Australia , Florida , China and across Europe which is incredibly humbling and exciting in equal measures .
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