Chef Nina Matsunaga's culinary journey spans three cultures — Japanese, German, and British — shaping her innovative menus at The Black Bull in Sedbergh. From foraging local sea herbs to championing sustainable dining, she shares her insights on running a restaurant with conscience, blending flavours from her heritage, and her experience on Great British Menu.
Growing up in Düsseldorf with Japanese parents, how did these two distinct cultures shape your culinary perspective?
Fairly significantly. I also went to culinary school in England, so I've come from two cuisines already meshed together, and then adding a third one to it. It wasn't something I really thought about too much until COVID, when we had more time to evaluate and think about what our cultures mean. The flavours that I put together at home or at work are a nice mix, it's positive.
Your academic background is in Culinary Arts Management. How has this education influenced your approach to running a restaurant?
I don't know any different, I guess, we've been self-employed for quite a while now. It can be more difficult in some ways. Trying to run a restaurant with a conscience, whilst making money and keeping people is something that really needs thinking about. We still have a long way to go and a lot more to learn. Once you open that door to questioning – how should I be doing it? how can I be more ethical / sustainable? – it can be difficult.
After your studies, you led a cookery school in Germany. How did this experience contribute to your development as a chef?
It's contributed in the sense that I'm trying to think what people actually like and want. I found that sometimes you can go very over complicated with techniques or flavours, or chase really difficult processes, when interestingly people don't know the basics. For example, if people are cooking for themselves they could find it a chore to meal prep. It doesn't take a lot to impress someone or take much for people to be very grateful about getting tips or seeing someone else work in a certain way.
The street food scene in Manchester played a pivotal role in your career. What aspects of that scene inspired you the most?
It was very communal. It was very welcoming and we always helped each other. Of course, there was competition for business, but 99% of the time we were all in the same boat. Compared to kitchens I'd been in before, where there was internal competition and conflict and the mentality of 'I come first, and everything else comes after', the street food scene definitely has a different mindset of people.
The Three Hares, your first eatery in Sedbergh, received numerous accolades. What were the key factors behind its success?
It was the right time, the right place. That was one of the major things. Apart from the takeaway places, there weren't any sit-down eateries at the time offering dishes with different flavours. So when we began offering a menu with Asian flavours, it was well received.
At The Black Bull in Sedbergh, you emphasise using seasonal ingredients from the 'neck of Britain.' How do you ensure a consistent supply of quality produce throughout the year?
That is a difficult one. You can plan as much as you want, but whether it's economic factors or climate change factors, whatever it is is influencing different products, so you can't really rely on it as much anymore. This year, for example, the Yorkshire rhubarb usually comes in around January, but we haven't seen much of it at all because the weather has been shocking, so they've not been able to grow it to the quality they want. For us, that means we have to work around it because we don't have the ingredients we'd like to use, so certain dishes might have to change.
Can you share an example of one of your dishes that beautifully marries your German and Japanese heritage?
At the moment [at the time of writing] we've got on an Amazake sorbet with bucha rhubarb and a very light gingerbread parkin. I've also been using quite a bit of ponzu at the moment with beef and enoki mushrooms. It's like a Japanese hot pot, but a plated dish.
What specific practices have you implemented at The Black Bull to promote sustainability?
Little by little we're doing things. In terms of drinks, we're very much into buying in more responsibly farmed wines. So that could be a funky natural wine from producers that are using responsible resources, small batches rather than large companies, and no additives. We serve smaller batch colas and lemonades, all British stuff, and we also only ever serve British beef from farmers that we know personally. Anything we bring in we tend to get shipped rather than flown, so it's not always about locality, but quality as well.
What are some of your favourite foraged ingredients, and how do they feature in your dishes?
Wild garlic or sea herbs. I'm a savoury person and I like the leaf of the wild garlic, but I prefer the buds that come after flowering. That's the season that I look forward to the most, and then sea herbs in the summer. Having grown up in a city, going to the seaside is always a day out. Most people associate foraging with brambles or mushrooms, and overlook sea herbs; samphire, sea aster, seaweed, sea kale, there's so much variety around us that you can pick, it's very underrated.
Participating in the Great British Menu showcased your talents on a national platform. How did this experience impact you professionally and personally?
Being a business owner is tough, and coming from a small place to suddenly opening somewhere with 18 bedrooms attached wasn't the smoothest, so I am reliant on the team around me. Going into something like the Great British Menu, you are by yourself so it was nice to know that I can still do things by myself on a personal level. On a professional level, it was great meeting other people. We were lucky we were in a group that had someone like Kirk [Haworth, Great British Menu's Champion of Champions 2024] who is completely vegan and has a totally different point of view. It was great speaking to people like him about why they chose their dishes or what goes through their head when they're planning it.
Sedbergh offers a unique setting for your restaurant. How does the local landscape and community influence your culinary creations?
In terms of community, we get people dropping us off some really random ingredients, like garden rhubarb. Somebody once grew an absolute tonne of shiso, and he didn't know what to do with it, while someone else last year dropped us off 20 kilos of apples! Little things like that influence us. In terms of the landscape, like I said we get our meat from local farms around us so we know where it's come from.
Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for The Black Bull and your culinary journey in the coming years?
We want to push our food and get people to try the food that I want to create. Unless you do it the way that you are capable of, I don't think anyone will ever enjoy what you make. Trying to just create something out of a book doesn't really work, not for me anyway.