Alice Power on what makes The Black Swan ‘unique’

It took Alice Power less than five years to complete a rapid rise from starting out in the hospitality industry to earning a position as head chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Following a reshuffle within the Tommy Banks Group, Callum Leslie took on a more overarching executive chef role in February 2024, allowing Alice to step up from senior sous chef to run the kitchen at The Black Swan at Oldstead.

From civil servant to Michelin star

Just a few years earlier, Alice had been working as a civil servant, before opting for a change of career.

“It is maybe slightly unusual compared to most people that end up in cheffing,” she admitted.

“I came to a bit of a crossroads of deciding whether to stay as a civil servant or what to do. I took the decision to take a year out and went and actually retrained as a chef.

“I've always been obsessed with food, so I thought, while I'm figuring out what I'd like to do, maybe I'll do something nice for myself. I went and did a course and even when I was doing that, I didn't think to myself that I was going to end up in restaurant cheffing. I kind of thought private chef or a caterer, up until the point that I stepped into a proper kitchen, at Carousel down in London.

“You just realise it's a fantastic environment, working alongside people, cooking all day. Catering and private cheffing often involves your own washing up, your own invoices, your own admin, etcetera, etcetera.

“So the juxtaposition to just think I can just come into work and cook with people that enjoy cooking and see the guests and do all of that, it really turned my head and I knew from there that's what I wanted to do.”

What makes The Black Swan special?

Alice arrived as chef de partie at The Black Swan in 2021, quickly developing a strong relationship with Callum, who has this year progressed into the Great British Menu finals week.

Based in rural North Yorkshire, The Black Swan holds a Michelin star, a Michelin green star and four AA rosettes.

And, as is the Tommy Banks ethos, there is a heavy emphasis on locality of ingredients, preservation and sustainability, which permeates the menu.

“Our approach here to food is that we want it to be hyperlocal and hyper specific to where we are in Oldstead,” Alice explained.

“That's the whole unique selling point of what we have to offer here - to bring people to say, you will only get this menu and these ingredients and these kind of specialist preserves if you come and dine with us here.

“So a lot of our focus is trying to think to ourselves, how can we really push the preserves that we've made, the things that we forage, the things that we grow on the farm, our animals that we rear to the very best of themselves and showcase as much as possible in one guest's evening when they come?

“Our ability to forage for ourselves here and our passion for it is the main reason that I wanted to come and work at The Black Swan. I became fascinated through knowing about Tommy's food when I was a home cook.

“The ability to replicate some of the flavours that we know from around the world, but with foraged ingredients or little-known herbs that you can grow, was the thing that just opened my mind to it to think this is what I'd like to be doing.”

She added: “The ruralness of where we are means that you feel embedded in everything that you’re doing.

“We walk past it on the way to work. Some of the chefs go out on their weekends and go foraging for themselves or they'll come in and join the preservation team to go out and learn about it.

“Any window you look outside of, you'll see something that we're rearing or growing.

“I think what's probably unique to The Black Swan is the scale of which we're able to do it. We have the preservation kitchen with Dickie (Jack) and our stores of it. To my knowledge, I think we are at the forefront of the scale at which we're able to do that for ourselves and the variety. We're very fortunate with that.”

Discussing The Black Swan’s Michelin accolades, Alice said: “The Michelin star is a good judge of what happens once the guest has crossed the threshold, the experience, the quality of the cooking, the innovation of the food.

“But your green star to me really talks about what is happening all the way behind the scenes before they even get to you.

“It's how we run our garden, how we run our farm, how we treat ingredients that come into us. It's how we structure our kitchen so that you're not producing so much waste. It's that embeddedness that we are trying to produce and grow for ourselves as much as possible.

“The Michelin star thinks about the guest experience. The green star thinks about how do we even get to the guest walking through the door?”

Working for Tommy Banks

From appearances on TV such as Great British Menu, having previously won the show, and podcasts, to running multiple restaurants, pubs and a farm, multi-award-winning Tommy Banks has a lot keeping him occupied.

Asked what he is like to work for, Alice said: “When I first met Tommy, I was actually doing a stage at Roots. Immediately, as he walks into the kitchen, he spots a new face and he goes over and introduces himself.

“I have seen him do that with every new face I've ever been in a kitchen with here.

“I feel like he's as friendly with me now as he was when he first met me in Roots, in the sense that it's just always been a warm welcome, always just wanting to know what you're up to.

“He is a very good leader in terms of bringing together the teams that he would like and then allowing them to flourish and take control.

“He set up the whole ethos and the backbone of what we do, but he's great to just support and give people the confidence to do it.”

Advice to young chefs

Not all chefs rise through the ranks as quickly as Alice has.

Asked what advice she would give to young chefs looking to follow a similar path, Alice said: “The best piece of advice was actually advice that Adam Byatt gave at the Michelin Awards, which was put yourself in front of someone who is invested in you and wants to bring you on. Stay there and work and allow them to help you build yourself.

“I feel so lucky. I've got a very short chef CV, I'm very aware of that. But the thing for me was that wherever I've worked, I've been in front of people who really cared about my development and wanting to push me on.

“I feel like that's been a massive part in how I have progressed at the speed that I have within the time that I've been cooking.

“I've known friends that got into cheffing and went to not great restaurants. They weren’t stood in front of the right people and it took them double the amount of time to make that same progress.

“So be strict with yourself about maybe the types of jobs that you take on. Jumping around, you'll see variety, but the true value I think comes from finding the right person that wants to mentor you and give you their knowledge, then you’ll just fly.”