Top chef on £6.50 supermarket steak you should get in next shop - and why toxic kitchen behaviour hasn't really stopped

Each month our Money blog team interviews chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks and more. This week, we chat to Chris Archer, the head chef of the Michelin-starred restaurant The Pentonbridge Inn in Carlisle...

For supermarket meats or own-brand products, I'm a big fan of... Aldi, possibly because it's on the opposite side of the street from my apartment and takes two minutes to walk to, and you can get a good bottle of vino for a fiver, but I actually really like their steaks. They have a great English wagyu range, and although it isn't exactly cheap, they have a flat iron (one of my personal favourite steaks) for £6.50, which is always delicious. My tip: buy it a couple of days before you want to eat it, and leave it uncovered in your fridge to dry-age a little bit to improve the flavour and texture.

One misconception diners often have about restaurant pricing is... that we shouldn't make a markup on the cost of an ingredient. I think they understand labour (though not the full cost), but you see people comparing the cost of, say, a steak or a bottle of wine in the supermarket to what it costs in the restaurant. Some ingredients are highly wasteful, and we also don't buy them at the same cost as a supermarket, so please don't draw any comparisons between the price at the shops and the price at a restaurant.

The most underrated British ingredient is... Henderson's relish! I don't think many people know what it is, and as a proud Yorkshireman, I'd say it's one of our best things. It's essentially like Worcester sauce, but cheaper, better and doesn't contain anchovy, so it's perfect for people with dietary requirements. 

The kitchen equipment worth investing in on a budget... are quality pans! You don't need hundreds, just a good frying pan, a saucepan and a larger one with a lid for stews and oven braising. A quality pan saves you a lot of time when cooking due to heat retention and stops you burning things so easily. And that's before we get on to cheap pans being full of Teflon and forever chemicals that are bad for your health and the environment.

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A cheap place to eat I love in Carlisle... are the many food stalls at the old indoor market. The town is not a culinary oasis like some other northern cities, but I really like going into the market and grabbing something to eat. It's just had a multimillion-pound refurb, and you can choose from lots of different cuisines (Thai, pizza, Chinese, fried chicken, shawarma, Greek, etc) - all easily under £20 for lunch.

A restaurant-level technique home cooks can use to elevate cheap ingredients is... measuring your salt when blanching in water. I always think home cooks don't understand seasoning food, and it is one of the main differentiators between restaurant and home-cooked food. Measuring salt is my technique for fixing this at home with, say, vegetables. Use a ratio of 2% salt to water (2g per 100ml). This will perfectly season your vegetables all the way through and make them taste so much better.

It's so much harder to find good staff in 2026 because... many have left the industry and haven't been replaced with students, apprentices or trainees coming through. Second, people are more reluctant to move jobs in today's climate, so attracting new staff when a position does come up is almost impossible. And third, wages for temps are so much higher than regular chefs, meaning lots of good people don't take full-time roles, making building a solid team very hard.

Read more from this series:
Emily Roux on not making a profit and a tough conversation with a table of six
Top chef reveals the two supermarkets that do great meat and fish
TV chef on Jamie Oliver cookbooks and the thing he wishes customers would stop doing

Delivery apps help increase sales for restaurants but... if it comes at the expense of the restaurant "experience", where more people choose to stay at home and eat from their favourite "restaurant", then in the long run - and this is purely from a personal point of view - I'd argue it's killed them. Even if profits are up.

There are still problems with toxic, bullying behaviour in kitchens because of... the very nature of the industry. I always say it's the difference between production and project management. Some people manage projects and can take the time needed to get it right, whereas chefs are production managers and everything they produce must be ready, right and ready right now. That environment is always going to create pressure and stress, and that's when some people behave badly. It's no excuse, though, and I think that's why it has got a lot better than it was 20 years ago, but I'm not sure it will ever be totally eliminated. But I'm happy with the direction the industry has moved in.

The most memorable person I've ever cooked for is... Marco Pierre White. He's a legend and a fellow Yorkshireman. I was working at a restaurant outside Harrogate where he came to film a series of adverts for Bernard Matthews. I don't think they ever made the TV in the end, but it was amazing to meet and cook for him. I was on pastry at the time, and I still remember his order: "I'll have the trio of chocolate desserts, but I only want the chocolate fondant, so I'll have 3!"

If I only have £10 to cook a meal... I cook Thai food. So long as you have a well-stocked cupboard of sauces and condiments, you can cook relatively cheaply. So, on that note, I'd cook pork pad krapow, or stir-fried minced pork with Thai basil and chillies. Minced pork is very affordable, and all you need is some garlic, chilli and Thai basil (along with the aforementioned store cupboard oyster sauce and fish sauce), and you have something incredible for probably half the budget. And it's ready in 10 minutes!

(c) Sky News 2026: Top chef on £6.50 supermarket steak you should get in next shop - and why t