Marcel and the Eagle Tavern

He cooked 210. A self-taught chef from Slovakia, running the kitchen of a farmers’ pub in the Vale of White Horse, who thinks we’ve been wasting the best beef in Britain.

Visit the Eagle Tavern Read the interview

The chef who cooked her

When it came to the dinner, there was only ever one kitchen in mind. Marcel runs the food at the Eagle Tavern in Little Coxwell, near Faringdon: a red-brick inn built in 1901 to serve the farming community, now a country pub with six rooms and a kitchen that cooks what’s in season and what the farms around it produce.

He never trained in anyone else’s kitchen. He spent most of his working life front of house, loved cooking, and one day decided to cook for a living. Everything he knows, he taught himself.

His instinct for using the whole animal comes from somewhere else entirely: growing up in Czechoslovakia, where nothing came out of season and nothing was wasted. That made him the right chef for an eleven-year-old dairy cow: patient with the meat, curious about what it could be, and determined that she should be the star of the table.

The Good Food Guide sums up his cooking as village-pub style with “hearty generosity”.

Marcel in chef’s whites sits by a log fire under a carved oak mantel, with framed cow pictures above. — Marcel by the fire at the Eagle

Filmed for 210

“You can’t find a single steak of dairy cow”

1 min 29 s · subtitles on

In his words

The interview

Recorded at the Eagle Tavern for the film, condensed and lightly edited.

Why don’t we eat dairy cow?

I find it really strange that you can see milk, dairy products, cream in every corner shop, supermarket, but you can’t find a single steak of dairy cow. Most people would be surprised to find most dairy cows are considered a by-product at the end of their life, and used for cheap meals or dog food.

What does it taste like?

Dairy cow meat is very different to regular beef. It has more deep flavour, better marbling. I would say it tastes more of milk, cream and grass, especially when it’s been organically reared. And after you cook it, the deep colour of the meat doesn’t change that much.

How did you become a chef?

I actually never worked as a chef for anyone else but myself. I’ve been working most of my life front of the house, but always loved cooking. One day I just decided I want to cook for a living, and I learned myself. I’m self-taught.

Where does your cooking come from?

Slovakia. It used to be Czechoslovakia at that time, a small country in the heart of Europe. Growing up in a communist country we didn’t have things out of season; there was a shortage of supply, so we learned to use everything. That’s what I try to use in my cooking. Here we cook seasonally, a short menu, everything fresh, and we try to find local producers, farmers who have something special to the area.

What did 210 teach you?

We start to look at appreciating these animals, the service they gave us, and treat them better at the end of their life. Give them maybe a year or two on green pastures, and then appreciate the meat for what it is: something really special, unusual.

Would people really buy it?

There’s a good chunk of people who are more adventurous. A few years ago belly of pork wasn’t a thing, and suddenly it was on every restaurant menu. The barrier is a lack of availability: you wouldn’t be able to buy it, so you wouldn’t be able to try it.

What kind of food do you want to cook?

I just want to do honest food. Honest food which comes from local farms, cooked with care and served with a smile.

And how do you eat meat yourself?

I personally don’t eat meat every day, maybe once or twice a week. If I want to eat meat I want something which is worth eating, which has had a good life, been looked after. As I remember from childhood, when I had chicken it tasted of something. I’d rather have something only once a week and it’s worth having.

Marcel, mid-answer, gestures with both hands in front of the fireplace.

Looking down on a long table laid with white cloth, glasses, bread and boards of charcuterie. — The table for 210, laid at the Eagle

At the Eagle

The meal

Eight raw sirloin steaks from 210, deep red with thick creamy fat, on a white tray. — Her sirloins, before

Three thick sirloin steaks, seared dark brown, resting on a wire rack. — Seared and resting

Marcel, in chef’s whites, carves steaks on a yellow board in the Eagle’s kitchen. — Marcel carving

A tomahawk steak carved into pink slices beside its long bone, on a wooden board. — The tomahawk, served

Eat with Marcel

The Eagle Tavern, Little Coxwell

A country pub with rooms near Faringdon, Oxfordshire. Seasonal, locally sourced food from a short menu, well-kept beer, and six rooms if you want to stay.

Address: Little Coxwell, Faringdon SN7 7LW
Phone: 01367 241879
Web: eagletavern.co.uk

Ask Marcel whether there’s retired dairy cow on the menu.

Book a table

Marcel in chef’s whites, hands behind his back, outside the Eagle Tavern.