Top Pickers
Chef Paul Foster

Paul Foster

Title

Chef Owner

Style of cooking

Modern British

Currently working at

Salt Restaurant, Stratford-upon-Avon

About the chef

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.

His journey to become head chef at the Mallory Court Hotel saw him gain experience under a cross-continental array of Michelin starred chefs. After completing a catering course at Henley College Coventry, Paul worked at several restaurants around the Midlands area. Paul Foster later spent a year at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire working across several different sections, including a spell under Benoit Blin on the kitchen’s pastry section. It proved to be a formative year, giving him his first taste of working in a kitchen with a large number of chefs.

In 2006 Paul Foster won the William Heptinstall Award, a charitable scholarship which provided him with £3000 in order to undertake stages in France and America. He spent a week in L’Auberge de l’Ile, the three Michelin Star restaurant in Lyon, where he was trusted to control the pass by the end of the week. After crossing the Atlantic to New York he fulfilled his desire to undertake a stage in the technologically innovative wd~50, learning techniques such as cooking sous vide and making hot gels.

The final part of Paul Foster’s trip saw him spending six weeks at The French Laundry in California, a restaurant he had long admired for their efficient service system and sustainable approach to ingredients. Paul Foster was inspired by their ability to source quality ingredients directly from their own farm, enabling them to write the daily menu based on what was currently available.

Chef’s signature dishes

The Professionals

Chef’s Irish Beef Club

The Chefs' Irish Beef Club is a global network, exclusively for chefs who are ambassadors for Irish beef. Through high-profile events, the chefs provide positive support and publicity for premium Irish Beef and are invited to Ireland to see the Irish beef production system for themselves.

Chef Anna Haugh

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.

Chef John Chantarasak

John Chantarasak

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

Chef Luke Tipping

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.

Chef Paul Welburn

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.

Chef Tom Cenci

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. Having worked alongside some of the greatest and most respected chefs in the industry, Tom pushes culinary boundaries with his eclectic and exciting menus, a reflection of his passion for his craft.

Chef Andy Mcleish

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.

Chef Alyn Williams

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.

A chef busy in the kitchen

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. He remembers the fresh crunch of the vegetables his grandfather grew and the smell of fresh bread his grandmother used to make. His grandfather also brewed his own ale and although Russell Bateman never got to try any, the ceremony of him proudly opening a new batch is a fond memory.

Chef Shay Cooper

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. Since then he’s worked at Juniper in Altrincham, Stockcross’s The Vineyard, and was named head chef at the Endsleigh Hotel, gaining three AA rosettes for his efforts there.

Chef Adam Byatt

Adam Byatt

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.

Chef Tony Fleming

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

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.

Chef Adam Bennett

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.

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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