Troublesome Lodger Simon Bonwick’s communal dining ‘movement’

After more than 40 years in the industry, Simon Bonwick is hoping his latest unique culinary offering can create “a movement”.

Formerly a holder of a Michelin star at The Crown, Simon has now pitched up in a room above The Oarsman in Marlow, as the brilliantly named The Troublesome Lodger.

Working alone out of a tiny kitchen, Simon brings together a small group of strangers for a communal dining experience, all sitting around one table, to enjoy whatever food he decides to create on the day.

The thought Behind The Troublesome Lodger

Explaining the concept, Simon said: “It is my culinary religion, which is haute cuisine, classic cuisine. And that's what I'm practising here for 12 to 14 covers with really great service from Savannah (Baker) and the administration and bookkeeping, all done by my wife Deborah.

“With everything online, AI, Instagram, Twitter, which is slowly dying, we look at TikTok and we think, well, what's the next thing? We don't know what AI will produce. So we thought let's create a community and a movement which is authentically real, because that's what I deal in, very difficult situations with people which are uncomfortable or fantastic or beautiful, but all strains of emotion.

“With those emotions, you can get them all here at a gathering for dinner. It can be a nightmare, but nightmare's emotion isn't it? Or it can be euphoric and magical and mystical, but it can be dark, dirty and not a very good night at all. So that's the risk. We go to the edge to try to balance the risk.

“The communal dining aspect of it is creating a movement for this kind of thing up against technology, a different platform that's authentic and realistic. We want you to come here and be real.

“You can come to The Troublesome Lodger and soak up an authentic evening of what I hope to be classical haute cuisine for a generation who haven't tried it or can't remember it. We're opening the old world, the old religion, and we're bringing it back and hoping that we just get people thinking and join our movement.”

Simon is keen to stress the importance of the role Savannah plays, having had a “Eureka” moment in 2015.

“Without the service, it's nothing,” said Simon.

“I was a chef that was pottering along. I thought, hang on a minute, we're not making any money. My son Dean said to me: ‘We're not making any money because you're always moaning. You've got to realise I'm here doing a great job out front, cultivating relationships with come again customers. That is what we need to build our business on.’

“I've never forgotten that. And everything changed when that sunk in. We're stitching up great service along with what I believe to be great cooking.

“The Troublesome Lodger’s trajectory is to promote old-fashioned cookeries and skills in a really light, promising way which is easily enjoyed. I'm just passing through, hopefully leaving a mark within gastronomy and within family, within just love really. That's what the movement is based on. Transcending gastronomy, that's my job, that's what I'm here for in a very small way here in Marlow, amongst the big hitters.

“We're here as the underdogs and we're a small chapel in the culinary Diocese of Marlow, pretentiously I could say. We've got to compete because right now these are dark times and I've got to deliver the old religion within dark times. That's classic cuisine and that's not fashionable yet fully.”

Simon’s kitchen at The Troublesome Lodger is quite possibly the smallest we have filmed at in our 16 years at The Staff Canteen.

Discussing the limited space, Simon said: “When we came here, I spoke to Scott (Smith) the chef downstairs, and Nigel (Sutcliffe, Truffle Hunting), because obviously they needed convincing. I arrived and we looked around on the stairway to the door to the Troublesome Lodger. Honestly, there wasn't even a lightbulb in it and there were cobwebs and sandbags.

“I came up and we were looking at each other and we tried to say positive things, but something clicked and I thought, yeah, this is going to work, this has to work, because I ain't got anything else at the minute and I'll make anything work.

“I just sat in a chair and I created a movie. Then I played that movie on fast forward. Then I rewound that movie and played it super slow just to make sure, because I didn't want to make any mistakes here in terms of the people who work downstairs and do a great job and being up here and being a nuisance.

“So The Troublesome Lodger is the perfect name for this gaffe, because I'm not perfect. I am a nightmare, as everybody knows!”

Simon Bonwick’s Artistic Escape

The restaurant is filled with Simon’s own artwork, something he explains helps him move away from the stresses of the kitchen.

“I have to cook every day, otherwise I feel miserable,” he explained.

“Whether that's cheese on toast, or foie gras, it doesn't matter. I have to cook otherwise I've got like a guilt complex of feeling like I've betrayed and not been loyal to my craft of gastronomy.

“So to give my mind a break from it, because sometimes it's so intense I'm lost, I need to do something else.

“Once painting, I can then travel to somewhere else. And that somewhere else is really nice. When painting, I'm in a place, I'm in a zone, I'm in a village that is like numb from work and in that numb place, which is silent.

“But don't get me wrong, when I'm in that space, I can hear cooking calling and I go, alright, I'm coming back now. And you pack up your paints, you hit Earth and you think, right, wash my brushes, then scallops, crab, langoustines, beef, reduction.

“When you come back to your job and cooking, which is the ultimate, you find out that it was okay to go and play with colour and oils, you come back to cooking and then cooking welcomes you. He's not too cross.

“Cooking is all you need. But the trouble is with cooking, it takes everything. You’ve got to go somewhere without feeling disloyal to be fairly good at it. I might be wrong, but that's what I think.”

Looking ahead to the future for both The Troublesome Lodger and himself, Simon added: “I've got a billion recipes and it's a landscape in my mind which are concentrated all the way down into things that I will do through the seasons, creating a movement for the Troublesome Lodger. I don't want followers. I want a movement.

“I want people to say, I go there for a bit of release away from all the technical, all the AI and everything that's happening. I want you to come here and have something really authentic which you remembered from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s or even the 60s or 50s. That different vibration, that different energy that was then, which can be now.

“The future for me is to continue to enjoy my cooking. I feel like on the hero’s journey, the call to adventure started in 1983 and you go round through all the different popular cuisines and all those great chefs of the 80s and the 90s, but you just arrive at a space and you just want to carry on in that space.

“That's what I want to do now because I've got so much gastronomic knowledge, I'm stuffed with it. I just need to get rid of all that, lay it all out and let people experience it and enjoy it in the movement of the Troublesome Lodger.”

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