People
Rodney Franklin
My catering experience started in the 1950’s with my mother teaching me to make the perfect pink gin.
In the 60’s catering for the schools rugby 7 a sides at Rosslyn Park.
In the 70’s as a cook on a farm in Victoria with 40,000 sheep, feeding 10 shearers 4 times a day, learning 101 different things to do with mutton, starting at short notice when the regular cook wound up in jail in New South Wales.
In the 80’s with Diana running the Secret Garden restaurant in Camberwell.
In the 90’s with Tim opening Franklins in Lordship Lane.
And in the 00’s together opening Franklins in Kennington.
Along the way I was an Antique dealer in Camberwell for 20 years specializing in French mirrors, beds and English farmhouse chairs.
Tim Sheehan
My grandfather was a butcher in Sunbury on Thames in the 40’s so I must have absorbed some of his ideals about British cuts of meat and how to prepare them from tales my Mother tells me of pre and post war London. And my Grandmother was a baker ………(no candlestick makers in the family that I’m aware of)
A potted history
1970’s Darlington - bands and youthful things like that
1980’s and 90’s London - working in bars and restaurants - Peppermint Park Covent Garden, The Pheasantry Kings Road, 7 Down Street Hotel Mayfair, Zanzibar Covent Garden and Freds Club Soho.
1990’s and 00’s Took over the kitchen in the Secret Garden under Franklins antique shop in Camberwell where I turned my love of cooking into making a living instead of just a pastime. When the shop closed the Secret Garden had to close too. I then worked at the French House Dining room in Soho with some incredibly good cooks.
In 1999 I got together with Rod and set up Franklins in East Dulwich with the help of Felicity.
Opened Franklins in Kennington in the summer of 2006.