Full name: Matthew Phelps
Role: Founder / Head Chef
DOB: “nah” [Ed: lol]
Birthplace: “Essex, bruv”
Twitter Handle: @Funthyme
Website: www.funthyme.com
Fun Fact: “I used to be a Jungle MC”
So, almost 5 years now since you decided to pack in a career in advertising for the life of a freelance chef. Could you tell us a little more about your culinary evolution up to date and how you got to where you are today…
…do you remember the moment you decided that you knew you were going to ‘do’ FunThyme?
I owe it all to Ainsley Harriet and Ready Steady Cook as that is the single thing that got me into cooking as a teenager! Things have come along way since green peppers and red tomatoes. I spent my twenties supplementing my advertising career working as a chef for luxury chalets which kept me in the cooking game.
I finally cracked when I hit thirty and decided to spend 12 months cooking in kitchens around the country before settling back in London and starting Funthyme.
What do you learn from working in ad sales, anyway? Does any of it carry over to what you do now?
Although sales based, my job was all about understanding briefs and giving people bespoke and innovative propositions. This is very much the core of Funthyme and specifically our approach to weddings. We love creating bespoke menus that tell stories.
You do quite a few things, Supperclubs, catering, working with the likes of Soho’s Experimental Cocktail Club, The Camden Arts Centre and Village Underground in East London. What do you enjoy most and least about what you do?
I love the variety of what we do. Last week we provided a science themed breakfast for a cosmetics press day, our Funthyme @ The Farm Supperclub and a breakfast and lunch for 150 guests at MC Motors. Above all else, the thing I enjoy most is seeing happy clients and people enjoying our food.
I dislike ironing chefs whites.
I met you first at The Spitalfields City Farm – how’d you end up working with those guys anyway?
I was introduced to the farm through my friend Louise who was a volunteer – everything made total sense so we started the supper clubs soon after our first meeting with the farm.
Considering your name, is thyme a big feature in your recipes, or not?
Nope! It’s my old Myspace nickname! I couldn’t think of a better name for the company so it stuck.
What’s a ‘day in your life’ like? Could you give us an insight into Funthyme? Is it a fun time?
It varies greatly each day. Today I have prepared 12 litres of Christmas spiced ice tea and 100 christmas tree shortbreads for a Christmas press day that we’re working on tomorrow which has bent my brain – Christmas stuff in July?! [Ed: it’s a thing]
This afternoon I am planning a wedding that we are hosting in a few weeks and I’ll get to work on the next Funthyme @ The Farm menu.
I work with a great team of chefs and front of house staff – they all think working for Funthyme is hilarious.
What’s your greatest/most memorable professional moment been, so far?
Unwittingly cooking for Michelin starred chef Alexis Gauthier at a wedding earlier this summer. I once hugged Anthony Bourdain outside The Royal Oak on Columbia Road at 8am in the morning ‘back in the day’.
Where do you get your ideas?
Eating out all the time, my ever expanding cookbook collection and the internet of course.
What’s your philosophy, summed up in a sentence?
In terms of our food… “natural and delicious food that tells a story and makes you smile.”
Whereabouts do you live (I’m assuming somewhere in London but I might be wrong) and what’s good near you when it comes to food and drink?
I live in Walthamstow. There are plenty of brilliant Turkish shops for ingredients and a great Turkish grill called Teres. We also have a good South Indian Restaurant called Maamalas. Walthamstow hasn’t been trendyfied yet which is good and bad. We could do with a few modern eateries.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had, how did you overcome it, and what did you learn from it?
As Funthyme grew we started to take on bigger and bigger jobs. Last December we provided a sit down dinner for 300 guests. We brought in amazing talent both front and back of house which ensured everything ran smoothly. At a larger scale your success lies with people you surround yourself with.
Who’s the person who’s most inspired you in your work – food industry or otherwise? Is there anyone that you draw inspiration or strength from? Do you have any specific culinary influences?
Valentine Warner for managing to be a brilliant chef and writer without owning a beard and being covered in tattoos. Jokes aside I’m always inspired by the wealth of homegrown talent in London, beards and tatts included.
What advice would you give to aspiring professional chefs who’d want the kind of results that you’ve had?
Eat out all the time and step back and think about how can improve everything you cook either for your self or for others.
Even if it’s just a ham sandwich, make sure it’s the best one you’ll ever eat!
If you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you be doing instead?
Relaxing.
Your most and least favourite dishes to cook?
My favourite is cassoulet as the processes take days and the end result is the epitome of gluttony. I definitely don’t like making cupcakes.
Most and least favourite cuisines? (from either a cooking or eating perspective)
I love eating Schezuan food as it’s the opposite end of the spectrum from European cuisine – I get cravings after a 4 week absence. I don’t have a least favourite cuisine as there are parts of every cuisine that I love. The deeper you dig into each cuisine the more interesting and appealing it gets.
Most underrated ingredient? Most overrated?
The onion is the most underrated ingredient. The most overrated is spring lamb.
Where do you see the British food scene going in the next few years?
I think the restaurant scene will get more and more regional. For example where we have Spanish restaurants we’ll have Spanish restaurants that offer food from one specific area. Restaurants will continue to be micro seasonal and ingredient led. Chefs are generating hype around specific hard to source ingredients and representing them in well composed signature dishes that eat as well as they look on an iPhone!
If you could cook anything for anyone (fictional or real), anywhere you chose – who would you pick, where would you do it and what would you cook for them?
I would cook a massive dry aged steak for my girlfriend on my Big Green Egg at home in our garden. We do this most weeks.
What’s your ultimate aim and goal for what you’re doing with FunThyme? If you could achieve anything with it, what would you pick? Money and reality are no obstacle, so shoot for the moon…
Just to keep making people happy.
Where next for you and the business?
I’d be happy with Funthyme is where it is now in 5 or 10 years time. I’m really happy with what we are putting out at the moment and we’re as busy as I’d like to be.
Anything I missed that you’d like to include here?
‘Chefs’ of Instagram. I don’t want to see what shoes you’re wearing or your new top. Let’s keep food about taste and pleasure, leave the garms out of it.
And we always ask three customary ridiculous questions…
If you had to become some kind of vegetable related superhero, which would you become, and what would you superpower be?
I’d be an onion and I’d make people cry to death [Ed: strong]
If you were forced to live on one kind of alcohol for the rest of your life (assume that your metabolism becomes specifically adapted to use this as your sole source of calories, so you had to drink this to survive) – which would you pick, and why?
Manzanilla because matches the kind of oily and salty food I like to eat.
If you had to get into a no holds barred, 20 round fist fight with any fictional character, who would you square off against?
Paddington Bear, guy’s a prick.