Life after Michelin-stardom – Russell Brown gets Creative about Cuisine!

Michelin-starred restaurant Sienna in Dorchester has closed its doors for the final time. But that doesn’t mean that former owner and head chef Russell Brown is taking it easy. Far from it in fact as he has just launched his new venture Creative About Cuisine, which will be offering consultancy, teaching and writing services.

“After 12 years at Sienna we just decided that we had done everything we could there. We had pushed as far as we could in relatively small premises and it was just time for a new challenge,” says Russell.

“Every now and then you need to get out of your comfort zone and Creative About Cuisine is a culmination of things that had been going on alongside the restaurant anyway,” he explains.

Russell will be writing columns for magazines and websites, sharing recipes featuring fresh, seasonal ingredients, as well as for Creative About Cuisine’s own blog.

“The blog is a really important part of what we are doing,” he says. “And it’s not just me blogging. We have about 16 people signed up so far to be guest bloggers, including Mat Follas and Steve Ashworth. They all have connections with food, but they won’t necessarily be writing about food so it will bring a lot of diversity.

“Writing is something that I’ve always enjoyed and it also gives me the chance to bring in photography which is something of an old vocation revisited!”

Russell is hoping that Creative About Cuisine will give him the chance to share his years of experience.

“We are talking to some cookery schools about the possibility of running some courses through them,” he says. “And the aim is to get some premises ourselves that will combine a development kitchen and studio space. That will also be part of the consultancy service with the opportunity to work with people one-to-one, chef-to-chef.”

Russell already has an exciting project lined up, working with Kingston Maurward college in Dorset.

“They are taking the catering operation in-house and they are bringing me on board to work on the seasonality of the menu and tying it in with what the agricultural students are doing so that what they are producing is used in the kitchens,” he says.

Although Creative About Cuisine will be Russell’s primary focus, he will be back at the hob for special occasions.

“I am cooking at Eat Drink Bristol Fashion next week at the Pride of the West dinner on May 8 and I am involved in charity dinner in aid of the victims of the Nepal Earthquake which will be taking place in Bristol,” he says. “I have also already been talking about doing some guest chef nights and some pop-ups along the way too.

“We only finished properly at Sienna on 30th April so it hasn’t all sunk in yet. I will miss being in the kitchen but it is time for a new challenge.”