Described as ‘one of the young tigers who are re-defining British cooking’ by the 1989 edition of The Good Food Guide, Alastair Little, who died last week, defined a generation of chefs. His Soho restaurant, simply called Alastair Little, opened in 1985 and ran for 17 years, and was seen as ‘a beacon of innovation’. We look back at his time there.
Nathan Outlaw opened his guest house in Port Isaac, Cornwall, in the summer. The chef, whose exceptional flagship restaurant appears in our Top 20 list, tells Josh Barrie about expanding his business, cooking breakfast, and getting to know his guests.
Country house hotels have been quietly shaking off their dusty image for years. Then the no-fly period of the pandemic struck and suddenly opinion-shapers were checking into places with glorious gardens, sumptuous interiors and kitchens whose food thrilled. Voluminous floral chintz in dusty dining rooms, prissy formality and palate-deadening food? There’s no space for that in these competitive times. Heritage-respecting style, easy informality laced with luxury, and inspired cooking by talented chefs using kitchen garden ingredients? Yes please.
“We can’t quite believe it,” says Ben Cooke, chef owner of The Little Gloster alongside his wife Holly, on being named Overall Winner in the GFG’s Best Local Restaurant competition.
Alastair Little was a chef and author of searing eminence, and his work is fondly remembered, not least by contemporary Jeremy Lee, who called him 'the godfather of modern British cooking' in a statement on Instagram. Here, Stuart Walton pays tribute to an understated man of food – one of Britain’s most important and influential to have graced the stoves.
