Neal Chainey boosting Dorset’s food scene with FOUND

By Neal Chainey’s own admission, the food scene in Dorset is “quite slow”, but he is bucking the trend with his FOUND Restaurant in Dorchester.

Having dropped out of school aged 15, Neal set about on his path to becoming a chef, starting out at the New Inn in nearby Cerne Abbas.

After spells living and working abroad in Australia and Switzerland, Neal and his wife Catriona returned to their home county, Neal getting a job at Yarlbury Cottage, before the pair then set up a private catering company called Found & Fine.

Then, in the summer of 2023, they went a step further, opening their first restaurant.

“Me and my wife have both been chefs for about 12 to 15 years and after lockdown we started Found & Fine, doing private parties or weddings,” Neal explained.

“After that we kind of grew naturally into wanting a restaurant and that's where FOUND was born.

“It’s quite hard to balance. We have cut down the amount of private catering that we do and we manage it as best as we can.

“It was all about learning this year. It's been a bit of a ride, but it's good.”

A Dorset gem

FOUND is open four days a week, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as coffee and homemade cakes, or cocktails. There is a focus on small plates, for groups to share.

And business has been going well, as they capitalise on a gap in the market.

“There's not many of us in Dorset which actually do half decent food,” said Neal.

“Dorset's food scene is quite slow and so therefore there's not many of us.

“As long as you do good food, people are going to come to you to be honest, like you've got Catch in Weymouth for example. You just have to do good food which separates you from the rest and hopefully people will support small independents.”

He added: “The extra challenge is our location. We are on a busy street, but it’s only for cars really. Dorchester this way is a bit of a dead zone, so you don’t get much footfall, which is a bit of a problem. You need to rely on social media, bookings and word of mouth.

“Also, having such a large restaurant does take its toll as well. The rent isn’t that cheap at somewhere like this. So you have to really pack it out to make good money.

“Most of our customer base are returning customers. Because we’re a neighbourhood restaurant, everything is very personal, so when you come here, I’ll happily come and talk to you.

“I think that one-on-one experience makes the customers feel special and it gives you a good relationship with them, so they want to come back most of the time.

“We are quite close to Weymouth, so we do get a lot of holiday people coming down, which helps in the summer especially. After that dies off, you see a noticeable difference in your clientele, it definitely becomes a lot more local.”

Foraging focus

So what can diners expect at FOUND?

In terms of the menu, it is built around Neal’s newfound love of foraging.

“Foraging means hyper seasonal really,” he explained.

“When it's about, it's about. And when it's about, we try to preserve it as best we can and then use it later on, so we can still have it on our menus. But when we use the forage words in our menu, it can be in any context. Whatever we preserve, then that will go into our dishes at a later date.

“I don't tend to buy any of the stuff that I can forage because I think why pay for it when I can actually just forage it myself? We're in the best part of the foraging season right now, the mushroom season.

“But when it comes to about November, we kind of stop until late January when it's wild garlic season, and then it comes about again and it goes mad from then on.

“We just try to use as many local ingredients as possible really, use our local suppliers. All of our meat comes from a local butcher 15 miles away. Our eggs come from a local egg man. Tomatoes also are grown nearby and we try to use seasonal mushrooms.”

He added: “It all starts around the foraging. If something's in season, we'll use that as a base and then go to suppliers with that in mind.

“We have all of the foraging cocktails and then we add on to that. So any fruit or anything, we add on to that foraged ingredient.”

Good online reviews have boosted trade in recent months for FOUND.

“When you get nice comments about your food, it kind of makes it all worth it,” said Neal.

“When you've had a hard, long day and then you get either a good review or people come to the kitchen and say ‘thank you, that was really great’, it’s a big rewarding factor.

“Having such a close-knit team is also a really nice thing. We've had the same team for the whole year and six months that we've been open. It’s quite nice that people are happy to be here and to work.”

He added: “It's not really about awards and accolades for us or anything like that. It's just about good food, having fun whilst we're at work and for me and my team to be happy.

“And also for the local people, for them to enjoy our food compared to what they would around here.

“We’ll keep doing what we're doing for the moment. I think in the restaurant game, you never really know what's going to happen, to be honest.

“We’ll give it a good go for the next couple of years, see what happens.

“If we continue to be this busy, then it won't be a problem and we'll stay here for a while.”