NattyCanCook: “I think about prison every day”

Nathaniel Mortley laughs. “Some of my dreams and aspirations – if I tell you, you’d think I’m going mad.” 

The simple fact of our location says otherwise: Mortley’s widely acclaimed restaurant 2210 by NattyCanCook, which opened less than six months ago opposite Brockwell Park. Cross the park and you’ll reach Brixton Prison, barely a 20-minute walk away. Mortley spent two and a half years there for dealing drugs. 

Five years ago, he was serving time; next month he’s meeting the Home Secretary to discuss prison reform. Few aspirations would feel outlandish considering his current trajectory. “Sometimes it doesn’t really feel real,” says Mortley. “Things have just been a hundred miles an hour.” 

I meet Mortley at the restaurant on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. He’s relaxed, ebullient, verbose and couldn’t be more different to the short-tempered obsessive chef often stereotyped on screen. His arms are covered with tattoos. He laughs a lot, always a good trait and particularly so in his case, for he has a wonderful laugh, loud and infectious. Here is a man you’d like to share a few pints with – “get pickled” to borrow Mortley’s term for intoxication. 

2210 has already generated quite the buzz among critics and locals alike. The menu is a celebration of Caribbean culture, showcasing dishes such as oxtail, wiri wiri lamb and lobster rasta pasta. The place is packed every evening. 

“Right now, we’re doing fine dining but with McDonald’s pace,” says Mortley. “It’s got to be rapid. We’ve got to be able to turn the tables within a quick-enough time scale. So it’s just about discovering where I want this place to go.” 

That doesn’t mean the experience is rushed. I visited in February and enjoyed a wonderful evening; not just the incredible food but the atmosphere, the sense that everyone was having a good time, staff included. (Several of the Mortley family are involved in the restaurant, which surely adds to the relaxed and communal vibe.)  

The jerk chicken was served with a ball of fried allspice terrine, charred spring onion and a yellow crown of mango and pineapple salsa. It was terrific, perhaps the best jerk chicken I’ve ever tasted. (Living in South London since birth, I’ve tasted a lot.) This is the USP of 2210: island ingredients fused with a fine-dining flourish. 

Mortley claims several people have told him, “This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to Herne Hill.” Having grown up in the area – my parents live ten minutes away – I find it tricky to dispute that statement. I guess there’s the Sunday market and the summer festivals, although the latter are largely unpopular with those who actually live here.

An entrepreneur as much as a chef, Mortley already has ideas for the festival season. “I don’t want people coming out of festivals pickled and coming in here. I want to do things before they go to the festival.” He likes the idea of a bottomless brunch, serving up cocktails and food for 90 minutes. So they get pickled here and then head across the road? “Exactly!”  

He has a lot of ideas. Before we even sit down, he runs through several potential redesigns for the existing restaurant. There’s an empty patch of floor near the kitchen – that needs to be filled somehow. Maybe get rid of the bar. Or knock down this wall here. And it would be great to install a staircase so he can do something upstairs, too. But can he afford to shut for the necessary weeks? And how long until the layout makes back the lost income? 

“This game is very much like the puzzle that never stops changing,” says Mortley with no little fondness. “I like the challenge. I like to feel like I’m going to win no matter what. I’m very determined like that. Once I’ve got my eyes set on something then I’m not going to stop.” 

It wasn’t always the case. Growing up in Peckham, he was a wayward youth, frequently getting into trouble. “I’d been kicked out of college. I was just going along a dark path.” He was stabbed aged 16; his family considered getting him out of the country. “My family were going to ship me back to the Caribbean. They were going to ship me back to Guyana.” 

Cooking proved his salvation. A love of food was ignited in childhood by his grandmother Iona, one of those people who loved hosting, always had food on the stove. 2210 is named for the date of her passing. Hospitality ran in the family: his older cousin has a cake-making business; his father Dave ran the Ladywell Tavern. 

Mortley did a culinary course at Lewisham College, then landed a job working in the athletes’ village during the London Olympics. However, “it wasn’t until I went to my first restaurant that the passion for cooking actually started.” The restaurant was Oblix at the Shard. Head chef Fabien Beaufour took a liking to the talented, enthusiastic kid who would show up on his days off, such was his hunger to learn. “I was very much like a sponge at that time. It was a very good learning step for me.” 

I got arrested for a reason because I never would have changed my life

Less successful was a subsequent move to City Social. Says Mortley, “I went from being a big fish in a small pond at Oblix, where I’m running the kitchen, and now I’ve gone into City Social where I think I’m the bee’s knees but then I got humbled very quickly. It was also a horrible environment.”

He lost his passion for cooking. He moved into a world where drug use was rife, and even started dealing, often to colleagues. One night he was leaving Fire & Lightbox in Vauxhall, “coming out of a rave, pickled,” and the police did a stop and search. He was arrested, charged, and sentenced to five years, ultimately serving half. 

At the time, he was desolate. Now he says, “I got arrested for a reason because I never would have changed my life.” As a Christian, Mortley believes everything happens for a higher purpose. “I’m very much a firm believer in that.” 

I wasn’t sure if Mortley would be willing to discuss his stint in prison. It’s mentioned in every profile, every glowing review. You wouldn’t blame him for wanting to focus on his successful present and boundless future rather than his criminal past. But everything he has now stems from his time inside. It wasn’t just working at The Clink, the charity-run restaurant at HM Prison Brixton staffed by inmates and open to the public. It was his whole outlook.   

“I know it sounds crazy but I think about prison every day,” says Mortley. “It was such a learning experience. I didn’t have an argument in jail, not one argument. Jail was very much a place where I did a lot of self-learning, I did a lot of educating myself. I did a finance and economics course while I was in there. I read lots, lots, lots, lots. I have to buy the Financial Times every Saturday, which costs like £5.85 in the canteen.” No discount for self-improving inmates? “No! Absolutely not.”  

Here our conversation is interrupted by a chef presenting Mortley with a sauce to try. He tastes the spoon. “More Gan.” Gan? I ask. “Pepper sauce.” He takes a moment – “that threw me off!” – before continuing. “I needed prison. I needed prison to really think about my life, think about things I’m doing, think about where I want to be in life. It was that wake-up call.” 

He dreamed up the NattyCanCook persona while in jail. Once released, he started posting recipes and food videos on social media. Most began with a smiling Mortley addressing the camera, “Let me tell you a story about… [insert ingredient here].” They were fun, snappy, and quickly blew up. As Mortley notes, “There’s no one from my demographic, from South East London, putting themselves out there on YouTube, showing their personality.”  

Another pause while the sauce is reconsidered. “That’s fine,” he says, only to quickly reconsider, yelling “Scotch Bonnet jam!” in the direction of the kitchen. “Scotch Bonnet jam! But not the glaze one! The other one!” Instruction imparted, he seamlessly continues with his story.  

Exactly a year after his release – 21 August – he did a six-course tasting menu at a restaurant in Dalston. It proved a major success, despite Mortley inadvertently pissing off the resident chef Kirk Haworth by removing his produce from the fridge and forgetting to put it back. “All this stuff went off. He unfollowed me.” Last year, the pair reconnected at an awards show. Did Haworth forgive him? “Yeah!” Mortley laughs. “He had a really good year last year. He won a Michelin star.”

More events and private dinners followed. In 2024, there was an opportunity for a residency at the Greyhound Pub in Peckham. Initially he was dubious: “I don’t want a restaurant because I know the pressures that come with it. I know the stressfulness. I’ve seen head chefs in a pickle.” However, he decided to take the risk. “That was one of the best decisions I ever made because I started to make money.” 

The residency proved sensationally popular and Mortley soon had the funds to open his own place. He considered buying the Greyhound but opted for Herne Hill when the space became available. The rest is (very recent) history; the future could lead almost anywhere. Mortley is refreshingly open about his desire to become the first Caribbean restaurant to win a Michelin star.

He’s unsure whether 2210 can win one in its current incarnation. He hopes so – “I genuinely believe that the food I’m doing is worth a star – while acknowledging the potential issues. “I’m a bit different to your everyday Michelin person. I want to have branches. I want to have events. I can’t imagine Michelin-starred restaurants having brunch. Or having an event sponsored by Captain Morgan, and there’s a DJ and people are dancing.”

I genuinely have nightmares about the kitchen all the time

Cost is another problem. He might have to reduce the number of covers or increase the staff. Decisions, decisions. “There’s no money in the Michelin star because the ingredients are so expensive. By the time you calculate, you’re not even breaking even. It’s why a lot of Michelin-starred restaurants close down.” (2210 was included in the 2026 Michelin Guide – the only Caribbean restaurant in Europe to be included and one of only nine in the world.) 

Brunch or no brunch, Mortley intends for 2210 to help him attain that star – even if indirectly in the future. “This is a numbers game. I like numbers because numbers mean revenue. Then I can say, cool, I’m going to get a 12-seater restaurant, which I know is not going to make money, but I can focus on getting a star. The books are going to be balanced because the cash cow is enabling it to take a loss. That’s just for the love of the game.” 

And the game consumes him. It haunts his dreams. “I genuinely have nightmares about the kitchen all the time.” A recent one involved Mortley doing a shift at Hutong restaurant in the Shard. “We’re going down, we’re in the shit, I’m arguing with everyone. Now everyone starts crying and stuff – and then everyone just left me.” He woke up while trying to flambé a sauce. “I was like, ‘Nah, I’m bugging out! I’m going mad!’”  

So win a star with 2210 or open another restaurant. What else? He wants to open an upmarket pub in Beckenham, serving food inspired by his Guyanese heritage. “In Guyana, there’s a very big Asian community and Chinese food is actually a thing. So I was thinking more of an Asian-type fusion with Caribbean. Imagine having a Peking duck [Sunday] roast!”     

More urgently, he wants to set up a charity to help inmates find their calling post-prison. “How do you expect these people to come out and change their life if there’s not certain things in place?” Ideally, he’d like educational and skills courses to be mandatory inside. “They might kick up a fuss, but at the end of the day, you’re giving them the equipment to be able to change their life. A lot of people don’t want to start again. Imagine being 45, you’ve got seven kids or whatever, and now you’re expected to come out, start again.”  

He’s gone back to The Clink several times, even hosting a one-night residency there last year. He’s done workshops and seminars in various prisons. “It’s just giving them the skills to be able to do certain things. I feel like that’s something which I really want to help with. Even with my business, obviously right now I’m a bit small, but as I grow, I want to offer them a chance to do programmes. It might not necessarily even be with cooking.” Inmates naturally connect with him. “They’re going to react to me because I’ve been where they are. I’ve been there.”   

I mentioned the tattoos. There are dozens, including the faces of his grandmother Iona and grandfather Evris. Another face is that of his best friend Trei. Trei died shortly after Mortley was released from prison, a victim of knife crime. Other tattoos include the date of his death and the legend “long live AE” (a nickname). While he has commemorated his friend with ink, I suspect Mortley’s charity work and philanthropy will continue to honour Trei’s memory for decades to come.  

We’ve been speaking for more than an hour. I get the impression Mortley could chat for twice as long. He loves what he does – not merely the cooking but the planning, the talking, the grind. He came in early this morning to film a segment for Saturday Kitchen. On Monday he has an awards show with Condé Nast Traveller, where 2210 will be named as one of the UK’s best new restaurants.  

“I just want to continue growing my business, seeing what opportunities arise,” says Mortley of his immediate future. “The things that are going on in my life, I’m just like, ‘Wow!’ I can’t even believe it.” 

2210 by NattyCanCook is located on 75 Norwood Road, Herne Hill, SE24 9AA.