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Karl Goward is head chef at Adam Byatt’s Clapham neighbourhood restaurant, Bistro Union. With more than twenty years in the industry, Karl has worked in some iconic restaurants such as Fergus Henderson’s St John and Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune in New York. He has also opened, set up and run a host of operations like St John Bread and Wine, Fergus Henderson’s second St John opening, and The Drapers Arms in Islington.
Within two years at the helm at Bistro Union, 40-year-old Karl has already earned it a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a place in Timeout’s top 50 London restaurants list. How would describe the food style at Bistro Union?
It’s based around good seasonal British ingredients, well-sourced and treated with a bit of respect. We try and let the quality of the produce speak for itself rather than mask it with too many sauces or do too much to it. If it’s a beautiful, fresh piece of fish, we’ll just put some braised leeks and a blob of aioli with it, rather than make a mousse out of it or wrap it anything, just let it speak for itself and that’s the same whether it’s a beautiful head of Brussels tops or a quail or a bit of sea bass; we treat them all with respect.
How would you say Bistro Union differs from Trinity?
I would say there’s quite a considerable difference. We always look at Trinity as being slightly more formal. I think they’re more in that sort of Michelin star territory. We’ve got a Bib Gourmand which is the level I’ve always cooked at. The price range is different; you don’t have a huge amount of linen; you don’t have a huge amount of staff, but the food is excellent and good value for money. So it’s in that list, which has on it St John Bread and Wine, which I opened and set up; Drapers Arms, which I opened and set up and places like Hereford Road, Anchor and Hope, those places where you can get a really fantastic meal but the food is – I hate to use the word ‘simple’ because people get the wrong end of the stick – but a little less
complicated maybe.
How does the process of menu and dish creation work between you and Adam?
Menu creation comes pretty much wholly from here. We try and get people involved and pitching in ideas and ingredients they’d like to work with or haven’t used before, and try and make that work within our style. It’s ninety percent driven by my repertoire but I like to think other people have an input; it keeps people interested and gives them a personal interest in the things they’re creating; they take that little bit of extra pride in what they’re doing.
It’s very much a neighbourhood restaurant; do you feel you’ve integrated well into the local community?
Unlike a lot of places, we haven’t just landed here; we’ve tried to integrate into the area and be a part of it and I think we’ve done that really well. We get a lot of locals coming in and we 
have a really good working relationship with the restaurant over the road, and with the local butcher’s. We’ve taken part in the summer and Christmas fairs. It’s got a good feel.
Who have been the biggest inspirations in your career?
I’d always go back to first seeing Keith Floyd on TV – the first time that you saw someone cooking outside of a TV kitchen, with a glass of wine, on a boat with a load of French fishermen, probably messing it up! It was all really appealing to a young bloke. I’d have to say Fergus [Henderson] as well – his philosophy, the way he approaches food, the way he had such a great sense of what was right and what he wanted to do. There were times in the early days where we really were ploughing a lone furrow and there must have been a huge amount of pressure to change it, to make it more accessible and he would not 
bend on that; he had such a clear vision and such a rigour about what it should be; that would be one of the words he’d use all the time – rigour. And of course he’s a lovely man. I’d come from kitchens where people had been swearing at you, throwing things at you, bullying, shouting, and it wasn’t like that at all; it just shows you that you can run a really great kitchen and it doesn’t have to be like that. There are people still working there now who were there when I was there, which says it all.
What’s the future for you, Bistro Union and for Adam Byatt restaurants in general?
With Bistro Union, like with any restaurant, the challenge is not to stand still. Recently we were fortunate enough to be named in the Timeout top 50 restaurants in London, which is an interesting and credible list of great restaurants, I feel. I keep telling my staff, they’ve got to take that on now and keep going forward and make it better every day in some way. It’s easy now to say we’re two years in; we’ve got a Bib Gourmand and the Timeout listing; we’re really busy so let’s relax and enjoy it; but it’s at these times that you’ve really got to push on relentlessly. For myself, I try not to make too many plans. I guess I’m at the stage now where people do come along and offer you things all the time, so it’s hard to say. I’d like to commit to this and push this forward but who’s to say? In terms of the group, we’re certainly looking to try and bring another Bistro Union out there somewhere this year hopefully, probably somewhere reasonably local to here like Balham.
View Karl’s recipe for Ultimate Fish Pie here
View Karl’s recipe for Union Smoked Salmon here
View Karl’s recipe for Toad in the Hole here
