Butter Wouldn’t Melt: Spring Style With Tom Straker

It's also the season for short jackets, from cropped blousons to lightweight denim truckers, via linen field jackets. These kinds of silhouettes offer a modern and casual alternative to the traditional tailored jacket, and yet can still look equally as smart and sophisticated depending on how you style them. We like to pair them with our heavyweight organic cotton white tee, but layering over textured shirting is another great look.

Combining culinary delights with contemporary style brought us back to our great friend Tom Straker and his eponymously named restaurant on Golborne Road in West London. Last year, we designed the uniforms for Tom and his team so we were thrilled to revisit and see what the Baron of Butter had been up to in the interim, as well as sticking a load of different spring looks on him. He scrubs up pretty well, don't you think?!

OS: Good to see you again, Tom. Can you tell us what you've been up to since we last saw you?

TS: Well I’ve recently launched All Things Butter, which is really exciting. In the last 10 weeks of 2023 we sold 100,000 blocks of butter, and this week we launched into our first major retailer which is Sainsburys, so that’s been quite a big thing. We’re just about to close a fundraising round of just over £2 million which will help us expand into the US hopefully, and other places, as well as other major retailers in the UK. On the Straker’s side, we’re about to take a lease on a deli on Golborne Road so we’ll let you know when that’s up and running.

OS: How does seasonality affect the menu at Straker's?

TS: Seasonality is always at the forefront of our menu. Early spring is just starting to come in so we’re beginning to get some French asparagus now, which I love. We’re finally seeing the end of the pumpkin season - glad to see the back of those fuckers. This time of year, I personally love eating asparagus, wild garlic, morels which are coming in - anything new really. We’ve been in the depths of winter for what feels like such a long time.

OS: The dish you made us today is just delicious. Can you tell us about it?

TS: The dish above was an Iberico pork chop which we sourced from one of our suppliers straight from Spain. It’s from the black Iberico pig which is fed on acorns and it tastes absolutely unreal. We serve that with some lovely coco beans, with some salsa verde and a port sauce which has a lovely sweetness to it courtesy of a gastrique of honey and red wine - it's a beautiful, unctuous dish.