Café Society - Part 1
Whitehouse (Part 2 The Lazy Bakery)
This place gets all the senses going, with cakes, breakfasts and freshly baked bread being delivered around our table; I’m finding it tricky to ask my questions while I salivate.
Rosie inside the Whitehouse, 24 High Street TN31 7JF
Where did your cooking interest and talent come from?
Rosie. Initially, an appreciation for good food came from my Mum. She’s an incredible cook, to this day, she’s never served our family a bad meal. I started working in a kitchen at 15 years old. I worked in a pub in Brookland, The Royal Oak, sadly no longer a pub. Here I learned that I liked the graft, I enjoyed the pressure, planning, and the manual labour of it. I worked as many hours as I could, after school and on weekends.
School was never really for me, I didn’t fail but I wasn’t inspired by it. At 18, all of my friends were off to uni, and I didn’t see how that path would be valuable to me at that time. So, I flew out to France, got a job as a chalet host, met some amazing people and have amazing memories of those times. This season was followed by a backpacking/campervan trip around New Zealand, the east coast of Australia and South East Asia. In the first week of my 2nd season, I tore my cruciate ligament; possibly the worst injury if your life involves skiing. I had to come home, tail between my legs, I went back to work at the pub. I was there for 18 months and that time, really enabled me to focus on learning as much as I could about kitchens, troubleshooting and hospitality. Then one day in 2010,
“I decided to book a one-way flight to New Zealand for winter, I planned to spend six months there, I stayed for seven years.”
Everything worked out for me as soon as I got to New Zealand, I got a job in a café which is still open to this day, it’s called Vudu Café & Larder. The owners really took me under their wing, and could see some potential in me, that at the point I couldn’t.
After a few weeks, they asked if I’d like to be trained as a baker. I hesitantly said yes. This was the beginning of a new era for me. I eagerly took on the roll, mostly taught myself, through trial and error, and it grew, the displays got bigger and more varied and extravagant. I worked there for several years, skiing or hiking on my days off, meeting people from all over the world, basically having the best time.
After four or so years, I decided it was time for a trip home, I had no idea how long for, but I was thinking maybe for good. It ended up only being four months. I worked at The Standard Inn, in Rye, for three months when Rosie was the head chef (Rosie, The Fig, see RyeZine Issue 1) I’ve known Rosie my whole life, we grew up on farms next to each other, riding ponies, we were very lucky.
After a while, Rosie moved on to work in Russia. I was still unsure of my plans so I stayed at The Standard a bit longer. One day I received a message from my previous boss in New Zealand. They were opening a new café, ‘we want you to be our head chef, come back?’ For me, it was a no-brainer, a chance to go back, with a visa, a new challenge and to learn how to set something up from scratch with the guidance of some well-seasoned professionals. I went back and stayed for another three years. We set the kitchen up; chose what went where, hired staff, wrote menus. I’d write a menu, and they would guide me and give their opinions. They gave me the freedom to use my own mind, but also the security and guidance that comes with years of experience. That café ended up winning New Zealand café of the year 2016: it was such a great spot, up in the mountains, next to a lake, it’s beautiful. I ended up being the head baker of all three of their cafés in the same town.
Out of the blue I received a message from someone I knew from Rye, they told me that I needed to contact Tim Brown from The Standard. We hadn’t been in touch for over a year, so I was curious. I emailed and said ‘what do you want then?’ They had remembered something I had said about wanting my own café and had been on the lookout for a premises ever since. They asked if I would consider going into business with them. At this point, it was all a maybe and nothing was confirmed until much closer to the time.
It wasn’t until about May 2017, that things actually started coming together. I had moved back home and I was ready for a new challenge.
Claudia and Tim had a vision of transforming a building in Rye, into something great as it was not being used to its potential. A hub for local people, six beautiful b&b rooms, cakes, a café, they also knew a guy called Richard, The Lazy Bakery, who drank in the pub, they had bought his bread while he was selling it outside The Globe. The whole plan came together pretty quickly. Claudia and I sat around their kitchen table for a few weeks, most days, planning every detail of how things would work, and what tradespeople were needed for what jobs. The building already has beautiful bones, with so many original features, it just needed some TLC.
The turnaround was quick. We got the keys on 4th September 2017, we transformed the building, and we were open by the 9th September 2017. They were big days that are etched into our memories forever, and so is everyone who helped, there were a lot of them. The previous business was called White Vine House, the vine was really damaging on the front of the building and pulling away the brick, so it had to be removed, Whitehouse seemed an appropriate name change and fitting.
The Whitehouse works because of the entire team. It’s all about everyone who works here, we can’t do it without them. So much work goes on behind the scenes, the kitchen team, George our manager. So many staff who have worked here have mastered their role and learned new skills. It’s so important to give people space to grow into new roles, if they are showing willing, it’s how I learned what I did.
“We want the Whitehouse to be a place where locals can come and hang out. Later in the year, when there are fewer tourists, it feels like a real hub when everyone is here; it’s really lovely.”
Whitehouse cakes.
Did you bring some of that southern hemisphere café style home with you?
Rosie. Yeah, over on the other side of the world, there is something so cool about cafés over there, generally, they are further ahead. They look smart without feeling too stale. In the UK we have a sharp line between restaurants and cafés. What I love about cafés is there aren’t any rules. International flavours and ideas can all come together and no one judges it. The expectation of a café is different than a restaurant.
I believe that consistency is everything; customers often want what they had last time they came or a variation of it. So there needs to be some things that are consistent. That isn’t to say that change isn’t good, it’s absolutely vital, but you can change with the times whilst still being consistent. Some customers come in for the same things every day, they are our bread and butter.
The counter’s food varies more often, it can simply depend on what we feel like making.
Gresty chatted with Rosie from the ‘Whitehouse’, 24 High Street, Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7JF
www.whitehouserye.co.uk