Tom Langdon, the new head chef at The Garrison, on food provenance, his inspirations and elevating the casual dining scene

Remember the birth of the gastropub? And how we rolled our eyes? A knee-jerk reaction to the smoking ban, we thought. It’ll never work. RIP the British boozer. But we were wrong, it seems. It’s a trend that has stayed with us, a new way to eat out. Relaxed and casual, without a cheese ploughmans in sight. Now, when you head for the pub – if you know your pubs – you can expect food of restaurant quality.

The Garrison on Bermondsey Street was one of those at the forefront of the gastropub movement, created out of a desire to address the needs of the area’s discerning and downright cool creatives, day and night. It opened in 2003 with a good menu – rustic and seasonal with plenty of daily specials and local produce from artisan suppliers. And it has stuck to its guns on that front. But where do you go next, when you’ve been leading the field from the front? What comes after the gastropub?

‘I don’t know the answer,’ says a candid Tom Langdon, The Garrison’s new Head Chef, ‘but as soon as someone figures it out there’ll be two dozen versions of it on the high street. It’s something you have to think about all the time,’ says Tom, ‘but at the moment it’s about staying true to our dining policy and understanding that there’s so much competition that you have to keep delivering. In terms of the future, it’s just maintaining a good source of ingredients and keeping it fresh – I keep a notebook by my bed to jot down recipe ideas. They don’t always work out, but you have to experiment. You just have to do your thing.’

And he does it very well. Given I’ve just enjoyed a delicious, original and spot-on seasonal meal from his new menu, it seems that a) the question didn’t even need asking and b) Tom is a very modest man. After a starter of sprouting broccoli, bulgur wheat, red grapes and merlot vinegar (get the exclusive recipe here), followed by sea trout, English asparagus and warm spring bean salad with tomberry tomatoes, I’ll certainly be raving about it to friends. Everything fits together seamlessly, and there’s always one flavour that stands out – that sharp merlot vinegar; those tomberry tomatoes literally bursting with spring freshness.

‘My style is bold, simple flavours,’ says Tom. ‘Two chefs in my life have really influenced me. One of them was a farmer and decided to become a chef in his mid-30s. He hated uniformly cut, over-manicured food and things like that, so he kind of beat that out of me when I was a commis chef. The second one that was a big inspiration was the French chef Ollie Couillaud, who was head chef at Le Trompette in Chiswick – he was all about being really bold with lots of garlic, thyme, wine… if you want something to taste of a specific flavour, then get that out, let the flavour speak for itself.’

Tom is big on food provenance, and given that Borough Market and the hip, kind-of-secret Maltby Street are right on his doorstep, he shouldn’t find himself in short supply any time soon.

‘I do try and source locally,’ he says, ‘but where do you draw the line on local? Does it have to be within the M25, or British? I always source British, because we’re all part of the same economy, and I try use local suppliers. So the veg company might be supplying asparagus from Norfolk, but it’s locally based. I’ve just set up with a new cheese company based in Bermondsey, Rustic Cheese, and when I call up they’ll give me a cheese board of what’s good and teach me all about it. Traceability is so important these days – you have to know where it’s coming from.’

99 Bermondsey Street SE1 3XB; 020 7089 9355; thegarrison.co.uk