Adam Byatt

Title

Chef owner

Style of cooking

Seasonal, imaginative food, bursting with vibrant colours

Currently working at

Trinity 1

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About the chef

Raised in Rainham, Essex, Adam Byatt was born into a family of food lovers, with a professionally trained mother and an army cook for a grandfather. Always proud of his working class roots, Adam was instilled with a love of food but also an appreciation for the value of hard work. Three days before his sixteenth birthday, Adam won a prestigious apprentice chef placement at Claridge’s from the Savoy Educational Trust. Inside the vast Claridge’s kitchen, Adam began the classical training that would serve as a foundation for his career.

After a period at the Berkeley Hotel, Adam began a prosperous tenure with ‘chef’s chef’, Phil Howard at The Square in Mayfair. Impressing with his penchant for hard work and clear cooking talent, Adam was appointed sous chef, helping the restaurant earn its second Michelin star in 1998. From there, Phil Howard again showed his confidence in Adam, appointing him head chef of the Worx – a contemporary restaurant set up inside a photographic studio in Fulham. Keen to start his own venture, Adam briefly opened a small chain of successful juice bars, before the itch to return to the kitchen proved too strong.

In 2001 Adam identified Clapham as the perfect area to open Thyme, his first privately owned restaurant. An immediate hit, Thyme finally brought Adam the praise he had long deserved, winning a landslide of awards, including Time Out Restaurant of the Year 2003 and Best Newcomer at the Tatler Restaurant Awards 2003. With his reputation cast as one of London’s most talented chefs, Thyme’s success soon attracted the attention of other businesses. Aged just twenty-nine, Adam accepted an exciting offer to move Thyme to The Hospital Club’s members only establishment in Covent Garden. A lack of footfall and unforeseen construction costs led to reduced revenue, however, and the eventual closing of Thyme.

Determined to learn from this setback, Adam returned to his beloved Clapham and opened Trinity in 2006 with his business partner Angus Jones. The restaurant served seasonal, imaginative food, bursting with vibrant colours which represented the very best of Adam’s talent.

The Professionals

The Chefs using Irish Beef

Meet some of the fantastic chefs behind our recipes.

John Chantarasak

John Chantarasak draws influences from both his Thai and British heritage to create dishes that marry traditional Thai cooking with British flavours.

Adam Bennett

Adam Bennett is beginning to receive the accolades and respect his prodigious talent deserves. After eight years as Head Chef at the vaunted Simpsons, Edgbaston, Coventry-born Adam Bennett became Chef Director at Kenilworth pub The Cross in 2013 – another venture-backed by Simpsons supremo Andreas Antona.

Anna Haugh

Influenced by her Irish upbringing in Dublin, Anna Haugh has been cooking professionally for 20 years offering Modern European cooking using only the finest Irish produce.

Tom Cenci

Driven by his pure love of food and his affection for the collaborative nature of the kitchen, Tom Cenci has earned a place as one of London’s most prominent chefs.

Russell Bateman

Russell Bateman’s interest in cooking was sparked at an early age. Although there were not an excess of quality restaurants in Hayes, the suburb of West London where he grew up, his grandparents were a strong influence.

Shay Cooper

One of England’s young generation of up-and-coming, ultra-talented chefs with Michelin pedigree, Shay Cooper started cooking as a commis chef in 1997, before he was even out of school.

Alyn Williams

Born in East Ham, London (and a life-long Hammers supporter as a result), Alyn Williams came from a family that celebrated food. His father had a great passion for gardening, and in his two allotments grew all manner of vegetables – peppers, celeriac, purple kohlrabi, every type of bean – things you didn’t typically see growing up in 1970s East London.

Andy McLeish

Andy McLeish takes the field to fork ethos seriously, hunting his own game to ensure his menus at Chapter One offer the finest ingredients treated with respect.

Paul Foster

Paul Foster became interested in food from a young age. His parents were involved in the pub business with his mother running the kitchens, and she would help him to bake cakes which he sold to the pub’s bouncers.

Paul Welburn

Food as a way to bring people together, over the dinner table, was an important part of life for Paul Welburn as he was growing up: ‘Food was always a social time with my family, being around the table, having a good meal – that sociable, enjoyable moment. That’s where my passion for being a chef started. I would cook meals for people (probably not a high standard in any way!), but I enjoyed seeing their reaction.’ Born and raised in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, he says it was here that he learned the value of working with humble ingredients, of getting the best out of what was available, and of ensuring that no part of an ingredient went to waste.

Tony Fleming

As a young chef, Fleming was influenced by the French classicists – Nico Ladenis, Pierre Koffmann, Anton Mosimann etc. – and still believes it is of prime importance that a chef’s career is built on a solid technique and a regimented precision. Yet he is not inclined either to take food so seriously as to take the joy out of it completely.

Pascal Aussignac

Pascal Aussignac is a chef who – by his own admission – doesn’t do concepts. “I don’t like the word,” he says simply. And he doesn’t “do” ego: “We are just about happiness.” Instead, he is a man of innate pragmatism and tactility who takes the rich, bold and flavourful specialities of Gascony – foie gras, blood sausage, prunes, Armagnac – and reimagines unadorned country cooking into dishes that are interesting and exquisite.

Luke Tipping

Luke Tipping lived above many restaurants as a child – his father was a chef and his mother was also in the industry. But it wasn’t until his early twenties that he developed a taste for high-end cooking. After what Tipping describes as a ‘misspent youth’, his father arranged a placement in a kitchen for him and he proved to be a quick learner. He enrolled at Halesowen catering college to supplement his placement and began making up for lost time.

The Grass Fed Standard from Bord Bia

Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, has introduced a national quality label for grass-fed Irish beef. This so-called Grass Fed Standard provides consumers with reliable information about the origin and living conditions of Irish cattle. The new standard is unique in the world, is strongly based on scientific data and is independently verified.

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