EP-192 Chef Tim Anderson of Nanban

Something that’s been on my mind a great deal of late, is where beer
intersects with other cultures, particularly those also within food and
beverage. You may commonly hear me bring up topics like natural wine,
low-intervention cider, speciality coffee and more when talking about craft
beer. And this is with good reason.

For me, the most exciting things happening within beer are often happening
at the points where these industries converge. Take our Uppers & Downers
festival, for example. When I see a coffee enthusiast’s eyes light up
because they’ve just tried a 3% Kvass that expresses flavours in beer they
previously thought mightn’t have been possible, that gets me excited about
the potential that lies within beer’s future.

At the moment I am particularly interested in the point at which beer meets
food and restaurant culture. This is partly due to my own increased
interest in food and wine of late, and finding myself in a good restaurant
more often than previously. Naturally, being a beer writer, while in these
spaces my mind turns to beer when I occupy them. Why isn’t beer treated the
same way on a wine list as the wine itself? How do we help this industry
gain a greater understanding of how beer has evolved over the past decade
and in turn, implement this evolution into this space? When it comes to
talking about beer in restaurants, let’s just say there’s plenty to munch
on.

And this all brings me to today’s guest—Chef Tim Anderson—proprietor of a
Japanese-inspired restaurant in Brixton, South London called Nanban.
Anderson originally hails from Wisconsin and lived in both California and
Japan before eventually settling down here in the U.K. He was a originally
a home cook, but in 2011 he won that years Masterchef—a prime time cookery
competition and TV show—which propelled him into the limelight.

What’s particularly interesting about Anderson however, is that before he
was a chef, he was and still is a passionate beer fan. Even while filming
Masterchef he was making ends meet pulling pints in London craft beer spot,
The Euston Tap. After winning he went on to brew collabs with Pressure
Drop, The Wild Beer Co and BrewDog—he even designed a menu at one of the
latters bars for a time, as we’ll learn in this episode.

This all came to a head when Anderson eventually opened a restaurant of his
own, called Nanban, here in London. At Nanban, Anderson specializes in what
he calls “Japanese Soul Food.” You can expect steaming bowls of ramen,
crunchy karaage fried chicken and even a burger which, somehow, fuses the
Japanese-influenced house style with his Wisconsinite roots. What’s not so
normal for a British restaurant though, is the beer selection. Here, along
with an impressive list of Sake and Shochu, beer takes center stage—and in
doing so, successfully demonstrates how beer can comfortably take its place
at the dinner table—where other establishments have either not made a
similar effort, or are simply unaware of how food-friendly beer has grown
to become.

A quick note about this episode. We recorded in between lunch and dinner
service at Nanban itself, so you can expect a little background noise. I’m
also joined by GBH’s Claire Bullen—who in addition to being one of the
authors of our NAGBW award-winning food column, Provisions, is also a
prolific cook herself, and has her first cookbook launching next spring.
Keep a look out for that.