Member of the month February 2025: Doug Crampton

Here at The Staff Canteen, we feature a different member every month who we think deserves to be celebrated – this month’s winner is Doug Crampton.

As thanks for being a regular contributor to The Staff Canteen, Doug will receive a TSC mug, an item of merchandise from our online store, and be entered into our member of the year 2025 competition.

Doug, who works as chef patron of organic fine dining restaurant Eight at Gazegill in Lancashire, returned as a member of The Staff Canteen in November 2024.

>>> Find out more about Doug and follow him <<<

We spoke with Doug, who was previously executive chef at James Martin Manchester for 10 years, until opening Eight at Gazegill last year.

“Eight at Gazegill is a farm-to-fork restaurant. It's a partnership between myself and the two farmers who farmed the land, which has been in their family for about 400 years,” Doug explained.

“We have all our own animals, our own raw milk, our own hen’s eggs for the restaurant. So a dream of the restaurant was pretty much that the protein side of it would all come straight from the farm into the restaurant and never leave the restaurant essentially, so there’s zero food miles as possible.

“We work closely with a local forager, who works and forages all off our land in the local surrounding areas and forests, that he feeds into the restaurant as well.

“The restaurant itself, we've got a 360 panoramic view of Pendle Hill. You drive through the farm and the pigs are running around and there's ducks and chickens, then you eat your dinner and have got amazing views of the countryside.

“The owners are big into sustainability, they're fully organic. Everything we do, we try and follow the same ethos that we bring into the restaurant. We’re pretty much completely off grid now, so all our power for the restaurant is done by solar. We do a lot of cooking over wood and fire as well, so we are as sustainable as possible, even down to the cleaning chemicals that we use, we try and be completely plant-based, like our recycling and the composting methods that we have.”

He added: “My grandparents lived locally to here, so when I was growing up I always enjoyed the outdoors. My previous position I worked in a city centre restaurant, but when you're here and in the mix of it, it's a completely different experience.

“I was looking for something that I could really put my own stamp on and make the place my own.”

Eight at Gazegill is open four days a week and offers brunch, lunch, a tasting menu and Sunday roast.

Doug said: “Every service that we do, we kind of underpin by the same principles of what you would do as high-end fine dining restaurants. On our brunch menu, it's not just a brunch menu, we cure our own bacon, we make our own sausages. We’re using all organic breads and flours from a local bakery.

“We have a cheese counter and a local guy who makes all the charcuterie.”

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the restaurant opening.

“We’re very much slowly growing the business,” said Doug.

“We've got a really small team, who have been with me for quite a long time and moved across with me from a previous position.

“We’re mainly concentrating on creating a destination dining experience. You’re not going to stumble across us. You have to go off a main road and down a hill, down a dirt track and down a bumpy lane, and then you'll find us. But we kind of want that. That's what is like the magic about it.”

Asked what his favourite dishes are to cook from the current menus, Doug highlighted the wood roasted chorizo and eggs (pictured above), Morecambe Bay mussels and organic beef main course.

To get to know a bit more about Doug, we asked him some quick-fire questions to finish.

Name a comfort food that isn’t considered ‘cheffy’ but that you love to eat

A bag of Haribo! I still live near Manchester, so I have an hour commute home every night, so sometimes a bag of Haribo from the petrol station is what’s needed.

What do you like about being a part of The Staff Canteen?

During lockdown I set up my own business doing cookalongs and I was nominated among the finalists in the first ever The Staff Canteen Awards for the Community Hero Award, which we were buzzing about.

I think The Staff Canteen is brilliant, just for showcasing our industry. That’s what it needs. It's like a portal for chefs to go and see what other chefs are doing and read up on different legislations. I think generally you read the truth on there, it's got up-to-date stories, rather than just hearing bits and bats through Instagram or Twitter. So I think it's just a good a good hub for hospitality, chefs and everybody really.

What is your proudest career achievement?

During lockdown, I was pretty proud when we got nominated for the Community Hero Award. We were raising £12,000 for charity, just doing online cookalongs. We started out on a whim, cooking for some friends and we ended up creating something and raising a lot of money.

Then also moving here I think as well. It was a big step, because I’d been with James for so long, and it was something completely different. I could have quite easily carried on with James and been happily ever after essentially. I was looked after very, very well there and there was a lot of opportunities to do stuff. But I took the step and for me personally it was putting my own name out there, rather than always being behind somebody else's name. Sometimes you have to sidestep away from that and go, do you know what, I'm going to put my own name out there.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learnt as a chef?

Do your time in different sections and don’t try to run before you can walk.

So many chefs these days want to be a head chef or an executive chef before they've put the graft in. I think you always see people who have put the graft in and gone around every section and they’re a more complete chef when they come into a role. I believe a lot in working with the local colleges, from grassroots, bring them in young and then I feel like you get longevity out of staff then as well, and you can teach people.