FLAVOURS... People
Tuck in to some marvellous morsels from Yorkshire
CHEF’S TABLE
SAMIRA EFFA
Huddersfield-born Samira started her career at a local restaurant whilst still at school, where she developed her love of rich flavours thanks to her Iranian mother and Nigerian father. Since then, the now 32-year-old has gained a wealth of experience in Michelinstarred restaurants, including 21212 in Edinburgh, Alimentum in Cambridge and Bohemia in Jersey. Samira, now based in North Yorkshire, has also worked as a chef for TRUEfoods, developing premium products for the restaurant industry. Samira became head chef at Bar & Restaurant Eight yEight at Grantley Hall in June 2022. She appears on the latest series of Great British Menu, which you can see on BBCiPlayer. grantleyhall.co.uk/dining/EightyEight
Why did you want to become a chef?
Simply because of my love of food. It sounds very stereotypical and is likely what every chef would say, but it’s true. I love how creative you can be with food and really immerse yourself in it; every day is different. One of the best parts of my job is coming up with new dishes, sharing the concept with the team and seeing it all come together for our guests to enjoy. I also grew up around lots of different types of food – my dad is Nigerian and my mum is Iranian, so when I was younger there were always lots of strong flavours and I think I subconsciously took a lot of that on as a child.
Tell us a little about Bar & Restaurant EightyEight
It is an Asian fusion restaurant and, despite me absolutely loving Asian food, it’s actually the first Asian-style restaurant I have worked in. It’s probably my favourite type of food to eat, whether that’s Thai, Indian, Chinese or Japanese. Asian food is bursting with flavour, particularly curries which are one of my favourite things to cook. I love that on the EightyEight menu we are able to explore all of those countries because of the size of our menu.
We don’t just stick to Asia for our inspiration – we have incorporated French cooking techniques, for example, alongside the Asian food, which allows us to mix the menu up and make it our own. It’s great for the team and I because it means that we don’t just stick to one cuisine type, which happens a lot in a kitchen, and it means that we can always develop and experiment with different flavours and styles of food.
I always like to work collaboratively with the rest of the kitchen on different dishes and encourage the team to share their own ideas so that we can continue to develop dishes together.
What was it like being back in the Great British Menu kitchen?
It was daunting to be asked back again, obv iously such an honour, but very daunting. The pressure of filming is a lot, you have cameras on you at all times so you do feel a
