Early birds out walking the dog in the meadows around Bath might be alarmed to stumble across a chap in trilbyand chef’sjacket, carrying a sharp knife and a strange collection of tools. But there is no cause for anxiety: it’s only the chef Chris Horridge, 37, collecting fresh ingredients for his restaurant at the Bath Priory Hotel.

Horridge is no ordinary chef. Yes, his food is experimental, cutting edge, witty, as you might expect from a Michelin-star cook, but he’s also trying to set the bar a notch higher. He wants his “three-dimensional food” not only to look and taste good, but to do you good, too.

Whereas other chefs might get excited about a new technique for ice-cream or a rare-breed pig, Horridge enthuses about the cancer-fighting elements in the wild carrots he has plucked from the meadows; the sycamore sap he has drained from local trees (hence the weird collection of tools); or his debates about food and health with doctors and scientists at nearby Bath University.

In his kitchen at the Bath Priory Hotel and Restaurant, the focus is on exploring the complex properties of each ingredient to see how it might play off another to aid digestion and give a feeling of wellbeing. How to suppress the saturated fat in foie gras while promoting its vitamin A content? How best to combine papaya with game so that the papain enzyme in the fruit helps to break down protein in the meat?

“When I started bombarding scientists and doctors with questions, I naively thought I’d get straightforward answers,” says Horridge. “But there are so many conflicting studies out there. I started looking into the phytochemicals involved in the flavour of carrots and found three totally different answers to why carrots taste as they do. We can perform extraordinary keyhole surgery on people, but we can’t explain why a carrot tastes of carrot.

“There’s masses of research still to do, but I believe this is the future of food. I’m playing around with a winter dessert made from echinacea root, for example, which has a lovely floral flavour. How good would it be to sit there eating a great dessert that may be boosting your immune system at the same time?

“The holy grail,” he says, “is to create an entire menu from which you can choose any starter, any main course and any dessert, and leave the restaurant feeling healthier than when you arrived.”

“If food looks beautiful, people enjoy it more”

On a broad surface in the kitchen, Horridge is lining up a series of square slate “plates”, painting purées of wild chive and garlic in broad sweeps as he begins to assemble one of his dramatic starters. His penchant for artistry, he insists, is as functional as it is aesthetic. “I did some research with a university professor, looking at how presentation can affect the way we perceive food.” If it looks beautiful, people enjoy the meal more, he says. “I firmly believe enjoyment can affect the way we absorb nutrients.

“I like to get people involved. When we send bread to the table we give customers a tiny pestle and mortar with some extra-virgin olive oil and a seasonal herb, so that when they grind it they release the flavour and aroma.”

There was no Damascene conversion that brought Horridge to this philosophy of food but, looking back, he can see the stepping stones along the way. His father was in the RAF and he spent his childhood in Germany on air force bases. Later he followed his father into the RAF, then his mother died of cancer. Her loss had a profound effect, not least in underlining the way that the time we are given to make our mark can be all too brief.

He trained as a chef in the RAF and his unlikely inspiration for a professional career as a cook was Lenny Henry in the comedy series Chef. “I instantly understood the mix of humour and seriousness in cooking,” Horridge says. He had also begun to appreciate the correlation between good food and health. After undergoing an operation in the RAF (he won’t reveal the details), he came across a book about healthy eating. “I put myself on a special diet and when I went back to see the doctor, he told me it was amazing how well I’d healed.”

His food is a mix of old and new

Horridge devised a ten-year plan to change his life. At 27, he left the RAF and got a position at Raymond Blanc’s restaurant Petit Blanc in Oxford. Blanc later installed him at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, where he spent five years learning about the purity of flavours. After a stint as a private chef, he landed the job at the Bath Priory Hotel four days after his 35th birthday.

At the Priory, he began to look at ways of bringing a third dimension – after looks and taste – to the menu. Always at the back of his mind was his mother’s death and a belief that eating well could make a difference. The resulting food is a mix of contemporary ideas and cutting-edge science, melded with the kind of ancient knowledge, gleaned from old books such as Maude Grieve’s 1930s’ Modern Herbal, that country people would instinctively have known in the past, but which has been largely lost by a generation raised on ready meals.

To kick off every meal at the Priory everyone is given a red pepper and mandarin sorbet, with fennel pollen on top. “It’s full of digestive properties to get your stomach ready for what is to come,” he says. “The red pepper has more vitamin C than an orange, and carotenes, which may help to fight cancer, while the mandarin has vitamin C, plus betacarotene and lycopene, which are antioxidants.”

Pollen is something that particularly interests him. “We use bee pollen in a lamb dish with goat’s cheese and honey,” he says. “Partly because my girlfriend is French, and it’s a classic French combination, but also because I am interested in finding out whether eating pollen can be beneficial. There has been some research recently to show that bee pollen, taken before the summer, can help to prevent hay fever and allergies by exposing your body to it in advance.”

Another focus is milk. “There is a mass of conflicting information about whether milk is good for you. The Milk Marketing Board tells you that it’s fantastic, kids need it, etc. Then other research papers tell you the opposite.” So, to be on the safe side he makes his own “milk” from various plants and seeds. “The flavour is there but I’ve just discovered that one of the components that is high in calcium, sesame seed, also contains oxalates, which prohibit the absorption of the calcium. So, it’s back to the drawing board on that front.”

The beauty of Horridge’s food is that diners at the Priory have little idea of the intense experimentation that is going on on behalf of their health. All they see is exquisitely presented, exciting food that is big on clean, bold flavours and unusual combinations of ingredients. “I’m still only at the beginning of the journey,” he says. “And I don’t want to scare people away. But if I can make a small difference, especially in terms of cancer prevention, that would mean an awful lot to me.

“Maybe at some point I’ll be able to send out a little note out at the end of the meal that says: ‘The bad news is, here is the bill; the good news is that everything you have just eaten was good for your heart."

Chris Horridge is hosting a four-course gourmet lunch on October 11 at The Bath Priory (£45 per person) to demonstrate his “three-dimensional” approach to food. For details call 01225 331922 or visit www.thebathpriory.co.uk

Gourmet . . . and good for you

Chef Chris Horridge explains the healthy elements in some of his signature dishes

Paillette of vegetables with boudin of chicken and wild garlic chive; daub of shallot purée

“Paillette is an old French word, which originally meant makeshift bed. This recipe is nature’s bed of local wild herbs, vegetables and chicken. A powerhouse of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and phytonutrients. All the vegetables are prepared in a way that may help with the absorption of their nutrients; for example, the carrots are cooked with their own juice and oil, to help the absorption of vitamin A.”

Salmon with Bramley apple; ginseng bubbles

“The salmon is cooked slowly, which allows it to retain as many of its nutrients as possible and makes the fish very tender. The apple contains quercetin, which may help fight cancer; and the ginseng may increase vitality, stamina and general wellbeing. I became interested in ginseng when my partner and I were trying for a family; now we’re expecting a baby in January!”

Rabbit shoulder and confit, smooth carrot with orange; coriander spume

“Rabbit and carrot together started off as a bit of joke (think Beatrix Potter), then I looked into the combination and realised how well the two work nutritionally. The fat in the confit helps the absorption of betacarotene in the carrot, which helps the absorption of the iron in the rabbit meat.”

Nondairy strawberry tartine, vanilla straw and berry juice; sweet clover

“With no cream or butter in the strawberry mousse the flavour is incredibly vibrant. The phytochemicals in strawberries may help to fight against stomach cancer while the juice may have antibacterial qualities. We are still researching the properties of clover, but it may be a detoxifier.”

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