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7 May 2025London Smoke & Cure
A small business that’s thinking big; producing superb quality, British-sourced fish and meat that’s impressing the critics
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cobbled mews close to Streatham station in suburban London isn’t necessarily the obvious place you might expect to find a culinary masterpiece, but whoever said appearances can’t be deceptive?
A small business that’s thinking big; producing superb quality, British-sourced fish and meat that’s impressing the critics
A cobbled mews close to Streatham station in suburban London isn’t necessarily the obvious place you might expect to find a culinary masterpiece, but whoever said appearances can’t be deceptive?
Tucked away next door to an MoT garage that proudly flies the red and white flag of Poland, London Smoke & Cure was the idea of civil servant turned taste entrepreneur Ross Mitchell.
‘I’ve always loved food, but I wouldn’t have said I was some kind of smoke fiend,’ he confides, as he explains how the business was born. Having left university with a PhD in philosophy, Mitchell was working in regeneration and affordable housing for a London borough, but he was beginning to have doubts if he really wanted to spend the next 30 years mulling over spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations.
‘My contract finished and, when I left, my colleagues gave me a £50 book voucher. I used it to buy five books and then spent a few months immersing myself in all the different techniques of smoking and curing,’ he says. ‘Sometimes, when you have an idea, you don’t tell anyone just in case you fail. On this occasion, though, I told as many people as possible so I had 1,000 verbal contracts to keep me going.’
‘That was five years ago, and things have gone pretty well so far. The business resides in a compact premises, to use an estate agent’s term, but there’s a place for everything, the order books are looking healthy and the awards are coming in.
The firm is choosy about its salmon, which comes from Orkney, Shetland and the west coast of Scotland, via Billingsgate Market
That was five years ago, and things have gone pretty well so far. The business resides in a compact premises, to use an estate agent’s term, but there’s a place for everything, the order books are looking healthy and the awards are coming in.
‘We produce through the week, then we run informal workshops at the weekend where we show people how to make bacon, salt beef or salami,’ adds Mitchell.
London Smoke & Cure is now selling to an increasing number of top restaurants both in the capital and elsewhere and it was also a finalist in both the 2018 Observer Food Monthly awards and the 2019 British Charcuterie Champion Product award. For all that success, Mitchell is decidedly modest about what he and his team have achieved. ‘I think anyone could pick up the basics [of smoking] really easily, but the difficulty is perfecting that product,’ he says.
‘We cure with what we call the Holy Trinity: bay, juniper and pepper; which gives the bacon a really great savoury flavour.’
‘For example, when we produce a smoked cheese, we smoke it twice and then we let it mature for an entire month. The reason we do this is to let the acridness of the smoke really penetrate the centre of the cheese, which is unusual. For us it’s a question of taking the time to perfect those nuances.’
The mainstay of the business, however, still hinges on salmon and bacon. Provenance is key to each of these products and Mitchell explains that the pork that will become the firm’s bacon is sourced from small, family-run farms in northern England; all of which raise traditional breeds such as Gloucester Old Spot, renowned for producing meat that is full of flavour.
The company is equally as choosy about its salmon. This all comes from Shetland, Orkney and the west coast of Scotland, via London’s Billingsgate Market, and is chosen to be of the same quality as that used in London’s best sushi restaurants.
‘Our products are swimming on Monday, cured on Tuesday, smoked on Wednesday and you can eat them as early as Thursday. No one else is able to get you smoked salmon that fresh,’ says Mitchell. ‘We cure our salmon with a blend of salt, juniper and sugar and apply this for a shorter time than most do. That way we’re ensuring the fish tastes really fresh.’ .
The smoking process itself uses English oak and beech, as well as heather from Dartmoor.
The firm under-smokes its salmon, then cuts it thick to resemble sashimi. The end result is delicious; buttery and moist, a world away from the thin slices of shop shelves.
The actual smoking process involves a fire (of course), a curving array of metal pipes, to allow the smoke to cool on its journey, and a chamber, a little bit like a tiled shower room, where the salmon hangs overnight.
Next stop is the bacon fridge, where Mitchell is at pains to explain how his product has nothing in common with the supermarket version. ‘We are mostly producing streaky bacon and curing it with what we call the Holy Trinity: bay, juniper and pepper; which gives a really great savoury flavour. We will cure for one to two weeks, then we hang the bacon for between one week and five weeks.’
And it’s what they don’t do that is equally as important, he adds. ‘We won’t inject any water into the product. Instead we’ll slowly dry-cure our pork. But more than that, we choose to air-dry our bacon for so long because it will take on a deeper, more concentrated and funky flavour. We’re aiming to make it a million miles away from the bacon in supermarkets.’
Such attention to detail is reinforcing the firm’s place in the London food landscape. ‘Our customers want products that have been well sourced and well cared for. Not only that, people will buy from us because they know we’re supporting local farming and industry.’
While setting up a business has been a challenge, Mitchell says he would not now go back to a nine-to-five job. Although, he adds: ‘Cashflow for us can be a nightmare. There have definitely been times when I’ve remembered when I had a steady nine-to-five income. But I love this business. It makes me feel alive.’
londonsmokeandcure.co.uk