Cheap East: ‘It’s just bizarre’ – top chef vents about two things customers do in 2025 | Money News

Every week, our Money team interviews top chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks, views on the industry and more. Today, in our final regular interview (we’ll still run the feature occasionally), we speak to renowned chef Mark Poynton, from Ancient Shepherds in Cambridge…

My favourite budget recipe is… cheese and onion soup.

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Margins are being squeezed… Without good landlords and good business sense, it is difficult. Four-day weeks do help, and set holidays too, but all these things do cost and you can’t make people do 70+ hours in four days which can happen in some places still. I am trying my best in my businesses and will continue to do so.

If I was PM for the day, I would help hospitality by… reducing VAT, but I don’t wholly agree with that just for hospitality. I think the VAT threshold across the board should be the same for all businesses but raised to £1m, so small businesses everywhere stand a chance.

The one UK restaurant worth blowing your budget on is… Moor Hall (north of Liverpool). Make a night of it and stay and have breakfast, too. Mark Birchall is an amazing chef and everything that place serves is the ultimate in hospitality and what we should all strive to be like.

I hate it when customers… fake allergies because of some stupid fad diet from social media, making a restaurant’s life hell.

I once had one angry person call me because I wasn’t open for his wedding anniversary… on a Monday, and we have never opened Mondays. He had taken the liberty to turn up without trying to book or call to make a booking – just presuming we were open. He was showing off to his wife that he had a table in the restaurant and made himself look stupid. Reviewing culture is just bizarre, people think because they don’t like something (and not liking something is different to something being wrong), they can publicly shame a business. Sadly, we now live in a world where people are scared to speak to people in person but are happy to sit behind a keyboard and belittle!

More Cheap Eats:
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We have an amazing street food burger van… and shop in Cambridge called Steak & Honour run by husband and wife Leo and Charley, and I always have the One For Ella 180g pure beef patty, American cheese, their own amazing burger sauce and bacon. Heaven!

My order at my favourite cheap eat is… chorizo crumble Neapolitan pizza at Scott’s All Day, Cambridge.

People can enquire where their food is after 20 minutes… If cooking a nice piece of fish or similar, it takes time and patience, and you wouldn’t want your prime ingredients pre-cooked and reheated.

Ring if you know you are going to be late… The more time you can give, the better, in my opinion.

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