Willie Little: still learning (pic: Terry Murden)
Interview: Willie Little, restaurateur
It would be fair to say that, in his younger days, Willie Little was ‘a bit of a lad’. By his own admission, he didn’t always play by the rules. There was a bit of poaching on the laird’s estate, an offer to buy a restaurant after a few too many on one night out. And at seventeen he ran away to Switzerland after another spot of bother. A bit reckless, perhaps? “Mebbee,” he replies, with a cheeky grin.
These days he’s the respectable face of the Perthshire dining circuit, owner of the eponymous Little’s in Blairgowrie and a wet fish shop in Crieff, as well as being a fish market regular, insisting on buying only the best quality fresh produce.
Little’s occupies a converted church on the Rattray side of the River Ericht, though it was a project that almost broke him. “The architect took one look inside and headed for the door,” he says. However, he got his way, invested £900,000 to tackle the dry rot and restored the building. Little’s has been thriving ever since.
During lockdown he became something of a local hero among those housebound customers who were grateful for the fish delivery service he set up. It was so successful he admits he was even tempted to shut the restaurant.
“We were doing 50 to 60 deliveries a day to people stuck at home. It trebled our turnover,” he says.
Ever the optimist, he’s also confident he can cut through all the gloom surrounding the current impact of rising costs on the hospitality sector.
“We are packed every night. What happens next? I don’t know,” he says, before he offers another of those slightly mischievous grins and quietly whispers: “There is a lot of money around here.”
Willie Little was raised in the area by parents who were both in service at Cortachy Castle in Angus. His father was the chauffeur and his mother the cook. Money was tight but his mother’s fondness for food and natural ingredients was passed on to their son whose only privilege was to be educated in the local produce at their disposal. His mother was expert at pickling, bottling, preserving, wasting nothing and making the most of every ingredient.
Willie Little learned cooking from a young age (pic: Terry Murden)
“She taught me all there was to know about seasonality, which in those days was a reality of survival for working class families,” says Little who, as a boy, was learning to cook traditional meals. A favourite dish was a mash of Jerusalem artichokes topped with a pigeon or plover’s egg. “Not exactly your typical childhood fare, but every day food for me,” he says.
He is still in the kitchen every day. “I like to show the guys I can still do it,” he jokes, admitting that he also learns new things. “I don’t think I’ve ever employed anyone that I haven’t learnt something from.”
He says the failure to keep learning and to change with the times and changing customer tastes, is one reason restaurants fail.
“I will have 14 different types of fish on offer tonight,” he says. “The chefs will go home tonight not knowing what is on tomorrow’s menu. You have to keep pushing.”
Little learned his trade by starting from the bottom. Having been turned down by the local bank for a loan, he persuaded his grandmother to dip into her handbag to lend him the money to buy a half-share in a chip van. He also did the back-breaking shift picking berries and ‘tatties’ in the fields.
But it paid dividends. He found a knack for doing a few deals, making a handsome profit on a pub in Coupar Angus and a country house hotel near Glamis Castle.
After ten years running a fish wholesaling business, the desire to get back into the kitchen turned his thoughts to opening a new restaurant.
As for the boy who used to poach fish in the river, he admits that at the time he wanted to be a gamekeeper until his mother sent him to catering college and he realised his calling.
Years later he hosted a dinner at Little’s for Lord Airlie whose river he poached all those years ago.
“We joked about it,” he says. “He said I’d been one of those he thought was a good worker.”
PERSONAL CHECKLIST
Occupation: Restaurant owner
Birthplace: Kirkcudbrightshire
Age: 69
Education: I went to catering college in Dundee, thinking I would just drop out and return to my preferred vocation. I soon realised I knew far more about food, flavours and ingredients than anyone else on the course, but it wasn’t until I went to Ayr College that I really started to love working with food, and it became my passion.
Career highlights: Working in restaurants, running a chip van, owned a pub and a country house hotel, a wholesale fish merchant and a wet fish shop, acquired two restaurants in Blairgowrie.
Who has been the biggest influence on your career? My mother
Any other business interests? A share in a spa in the town
What’s your guilty pleasure? I have bought a yacht which is berthed at South Queensferry, so I’m learning to sail.
If you could invite three people to dine at your restaurant who would you choose? Lord Airlie, my son Christopher and good friend Sandy Fraser [hotelier].
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