Lucie Greenwood of The Milk Shed on her work with a Michelin-starred chef

I first met Ollie Dabbous during his stint at the London restaurant, Texture. I was with mutual friends having a drink in the bar, and within a few weeks of that meeting got to eat his heavenly food for the first time at a supper club, part of The Loft Project, hosted by Nuno Mendes in Shoreditch.

This was at least six years ago but I remember certain dishes as though it were yesterday and my respect for his culinary genius continued to flourish as his career exploded on to the London restaurant scene.

At the time we met, Ollie was working round the clock to promote his brilliant cooking style in order to raise funds to open his first restaurant, Dabbous, which succeeded, opening its doors in January 2012.

Now renowned as one of the best in the country having received an unprecedented five stars from Fay Maschler of the Evening Standard, and a Michelin Star within its first year.

In comparison my dream to have a place of my own was still very much a twinkle in the background, and the idea of collaborating one day to hold a pop-up with Ollie Dabbous, in my own café, with my food being served alongside his, was something that would never have entered my imagination.

And so it was quite a surreal feeling to welcome Ollie to The Milk Shed and help him unload the meticulous prep from the back of a black cab that had come straight from his kitchen in Whitfield Street. He was as characteristically laid back as ever and settled down to a coffee and ice cream while we finished closing up for the day in order to begin the transformation from bustling café, to beautiful candle-lit restaurant.

On top of the additional prep involved, I had failed to factor in the small detail of the date falling in half term, and my head chef having a few days off, preceding the dinner, to spend with his kids.

And so the week leading up to the big day was a fairly stressful one, to say the least, but hey, I couldn’t let everyone down so I buckled up and after two consecutive 5am starts to churn enough ice cream to satisfy the school holiday demand, followed by a few seriously late nights spent cracking brilliant pink lobster shells, filleting huge bass, and picking the flesh from kilo after kilo of beautiful palourde clams in order to attempt a main course worthy of Ollie’s menu, the hard work paid off and the Saturday night finally arrived.

We decorated with 200 tea lights, lots of lamps, and it’s amazing what some lovely glassware and a bit of raffia can do – the shed looked stunning – after nibbles of Nocellara olives, spiced nuts, Dabbous sourdough and home-whipped butter (the secret’s in the salt ratio apparently) we served a beautiful four-course menu with Ollie creating two of his most celebrated dishes from Dabbous, serving the fennel salad with pickled rose petals and lemon balm ‘Milk Shed’ style on sharing platters and then his beautiful coddled egg with woodland mushrooms served in the shell that sits in its own individual hay nest, just so cute, and rich with smoky buttery flavours.

We followed that with a main course of summer fish stew and after Ollie’s bubblegum ice cream pudding guests were served his signature cigar leaf caramel chocolates.

Ollie works with a calm confidence and neat perfectionism that is quite breathtaking and for our team to work with him was an honour.