Jason Atherton has worked with chefs including Pierre Koffmann, Nico Ladenis, and Marco Pierre White. He joined the Gordon Ramsay Group in 2001 as the executive chef for Verre in Dubai. In 2005, Jason returned to the UK and opened Maze.[5]
In November 2007, Atherton and Gordon Ramsay oversaw the launch of Maze in the Hilton Prague Old Town. April 2008 saw the launch of Maze Grill, which sits alongside maze in Grosvenor Square. In 2009 Atherton opened Maze in Cape Town at the One and Only Hotel and also maze restaurants in Melbourne and Qatar.
"Should you hold a knife to my throat and force me to say which one of the chefs in the Gordon Ramsay group I thought was the best, my answer would be Jason Atherton. Actually, I’d admit it without any coercion". – Fay Maschler, Evening Standard, 16.04.08[6]
Atherton left Gordon Ramsay Holdings in 2010 to launch his own restaurant company, The Social Company.[7] He launched his first independent restaurant venture, Table No. 1, at the Waterhouse at South Bund hotel in Shanghai in May 2010. His flagship restaurant has been awarded one Michelin star, Pollen Street Social, opened in April 2011 in Mayfair. The restaurant has been ranked at number six in The Good Food Guide's Top 50 Restaurants 2013 & 2014[8] and number three in the 2016 guide.[9] It was deemed London's best new fine dining restaurant in the Time Out Eating & Drinking Awards 2011[10] and won New Restaurant of the Year at the Craft Guild of Chefs Awards 2012.[11] The restaurant has 4 AA Rosettes and has been named the BMW Square Meal Restaurant of the Year 2011.[12] In 2014 the restaurant won Food and Travel Magazine Readers Award's "Restaurant of the Year - UK"[13] and Jason Atherton won Restaurateur of the Year at the Catey's[14]
Between 2011 and 2012, Atherton expanded his Asian ventures with Esquina, a tapas bar in Chinatown, Singapore, The Study, a British style cafe, also in Singapore and 22 Ships with Yenn Wong of JIA Group, in Hong Kong.
In 2013, Atherton opened two different ventures in London. The first was Little Social, a French brasserie-style restaurant located opposite his flagship restaurant. A short while later he opened the more casual modern British restaurant, Social Eating House, on Soho's Poland Street,[15] as well as his second venue in Shanghai, The Commune Social, headed by Chef Scott Melvin, formerly of Table No. 1[16] and Ham & Sherry, his second Hong Kong restaurant.[17] In the autumn of 2013, Atherton launched Berners Tavern[18] within the London EDITION hotel.
2014 saw the openings of 2 new members in the "Social" restaurant family with City Social in Tower 42, London,[19] which won a Michelin star within six months of opening, and Aberdeen Street Social in Hong Kong.[20]
In 2015, Atherton opened his first stateside restaurant The Clocktower[21] within the New York EDITION hotel at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building. This was followed by Social Wine & Tapas[22] in London's Marylebone, a casual tapas bar and wine shop. In September, Jason opened his first 'Social' restaurant in Dubai, Marina Social,[23] within the new Intercontinental Dubai Marina.
In June 2016, Atherton opened his first restaurant in Cebu, Philippines - The Pig and Palm is a 70-seater with a chefs table, tapas bar, main dining area and a lounge area, designed by architect Lyndon Neri of Neri and Hu, who also designed Atherton's other restaurants Pollen Street Social, Sosharu and Kensington Street Social. This restaurant serves as his love letter to his wife, who is from Cebu. Atherton opened the Temple and Sons restaurant in London in November, 2016.[24]
Atherton's recipes and articles have appeared widely in magazines and newspapers including: The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Observer Food Monthly, Waitrose Food Illustrated, Caterer and Hotelkeeper. Additionally, he demonstrates regularly on food shows in the UK and abroad. He is a regular guest on "Saturday Kitchen" and in June 2008, Jason won the third hugely popular series of BBC2's "Great British Menu", cooking both the starter and main courses at the "Gherkin" building in London. In 2009 and 2010 Atherton returned to "Great British Menu" as a host. He has also won "Chef Award" at the Catey Awards 2012.[25]
In 2014 Jason Atherton co-hosted the UK series My Kitchen Rules with Lorraine Pascale. The series aired on Sky Living HD, the first show aired on Thursday 23 January 2014.
In 2016 Jason was a guest judge for an episode in series 8 of Masterchef Australia with 3 contestants having to re-create one of Jason's award-winning dishes in an elimination challenge.
In 2019 Atherton hosted the BBC show “The Chef’s Brigade” where he took a team of raw cooking talent and, in six weeks, tried to turn them into a Chefs’ Brigade to compete with Europe’s finest restaurants.
On 15 July 2023, Jason Atherton's Dubai Dishes; a ten-part cookery series premiered on ITV1. In the series, Atherton makes some of his favourite dishes from Dubai and across the U.A.E. Also featured in the series are dishes from some of Dubai's top chefs.[29]
Awards
1996: "Best Young Chef" in Britain by Jonathan Meades of The Sunday Times.
Jason appeared in the film “death to the chef” a thriller about a chef who has to solve a crime
Personal life
Atherton lives in southwest London with his Filipino wife Irha and their three daughters.
Related Research Articles
Gordon James Ramsay is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, television presenter, and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded seventeen Michelin stars overall and currently holds seven. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the world.
Le Gavroche is a restaurant at 43 Upper Brook Street in Mayfair, London. It was opened in 1967 by Michel and Albert Roux at 61 Lower Sloane Street, its premises until 1981. Albert's son Michel Roux Jr is the current chef patron. It was the first restaurant in the UK to be awarded three Michelin stars, which it held from 1982 to 1993.
Marcus Wareing is an English celebrity chef who is currently Chef-Owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus in Knightsbridge. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals.
Mark Sargeant is an English chef and restaurateur from Larkfield, Kent.
The Cateys are a UK award ceremony for the hospitality industry, first held in 1984. They have been described as the hospitality industry's equivalent of the Oscars. Recipients are nominated, selected and awarded by the industry through The Caterer magazine.
The Caterer is a weekly UK business magazine for hospitality professionals. It covers all areas of the hospitality industry providing news, analysis and features about senior industry professionals, businesses and trends. It also includes monthly reviews of the latest hospitality products, from kitchen equipment to food and beverages.
Club Gascon is a French restaurant located in London, England. As of 2012, the restaurant holds one star in the Michelin Guide. The French restaurant was opened by Pascal Aussignac and Vincent Labeyrie in October 1998, and serves French cuisine. In addition to its Michelin star, it has also won two Catey Awards.
Clare Smyth is a Northern Irish chef. She is the Chef Patron of three Michelin starred Core by Clare Smyth which opened in 2017. Previously she was Chef Patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay from 2012 to 2016, won the Chef of the Year award in 2013, and achieved a perfect score in the 2015 edition of the Good Food Guide. Smyth has also appeared on television shows such as Masterchef and Saturday Kitchen. Smyth also notably catered at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2018 wedding.
Pétrus is a restaurant in London, which serves modern French cuisine. It is located in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia and is part of Gordon Ramsay restaurants owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Ltd. It has held one Michelin star since 2011, and 3 AA Rosettes.
Claude Bosi is a French chef. Claude's first Head Chef position was at Overton Grange in 1999. He opened his first UK restaurant Hibiscus in the market town of Ludlow, Shropshire, in 2000 and was awarded two Michelin Stars in 2004. In 2007, he relocated the restaurant to London, where he went on to reclaim the two Michelin Stars in 2009.
Harveys was a restaurant in Wandsworth, London, run by chef Marco Pierre White between 1987 and 1993. Its French cuisine was warmly received by food critics, and it was named Restaurant of the Year by The Times in 1987.
Aubergine was a restaurant in Chelsea, London. Owned by A-Z Restaurants, it was opened under chef Gordon Ramsay in 1993. Aubergine was awarded two Michelin stars in 1997, which it held until Ramsay left the restaurant in July 1998 following the sacking of Marcus Wareing from sister restaurant L'Oranger. It subsequently reopened and held a single Michelin star under William Drabble until he left the restaurant in 2009. Aubergine closed in 2010, pending a relaunch as an informal Italian restaurant.
Pollen Street Social is a restaurant in London, England, run by chef Jason Atherton. It was Atherton's first UK solo restaurant, and in 2011 was named the best new UK restaurant by the Good Food Guide, and the best new fine-dining restaurant in London by Time Out. It currently holds one Michelin star, which it gained within a year of opening. Elements in the restaurant such as the dessert bar have been subsequently included in Atherton's other restaurants.
Angela Hartnett at The Connaught, also known as MENU, was a restaurant owned by Gordon Ramsay Holdings and run by chef Angela Hartnett. It was located within The Connaught in Mayfair, London. The restaurant was opened following Ramsay's successful opening of Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, within the Claridge's hotel, which is owned by the same equity group. Ramsay had originally been asked to move Restaurant Gordon Ramsay into the space, but suggested that Hartnett should run a new operation there instead. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in the 2004 guide and held it until it closed in 2007.
Verre, also known as Gordon Ramsay at the Hilton Dubai Creek, was a restaurant operated by chef Gordon Ramsay which was located within the Hilton Dubai Creek. It was the first overseas restaurant to be opened by Ramsay, and was in operation for ten years between 2001 and 2011. It was a combined operation between Hilton and Ramsay, with the celebrity chef taking a percentage of the takings each month and Hilton drawing up staffing salaries and arranging the decor of the restaurant. These would both cause problems as Ramsay disliked the decor, and had to initially pay supplements to his staff to prevent them from leaving due to the lower wages paid by Hilton. Amongst the head chefs who worked at Verre, Angela Hartnett and Jason Atherton both went on to win Michelin stars upon their return to the UK. The restaurant was positively received by critics and was named the best restaurant in the Middle East in 2010.
Omar Allibhoy is a Spanish celebrity chef. He has previously worked at elBulli under Ferran Adrià and Maze under Jason Atherton. He is the founder of the Tapas Revolution group. He opened his first restaurant at Westfield London in 2011.
The Araki is a sushi restaurant founded by Japanese chef Mitsuhiro Araki which opened in London in 2014. It was awarded two stars in the 2016 Michelin Guide for the UK and Ireland, before being awarded three in the 2018 guide, making it the first Japanese restaurant to win three stars in Europe. In the 2020 guide, it lost all its 3 stars following the departure of head chef Mitsuhiro Araki.
Philip Howard is a South African-British chef, chef patron, and restaurateur. He gained cooking skills while working under Marco Pierre White at Harveys and Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum. Howard and White's then-business partner Nigel Platts-Martin opened London restaurant The Square in December 1991, despite both of their inexperience in operating a restaurant at the time.
Tom Aikens, also named Tom Aitkens, is an English Michelin-starred chef. Aikens briefly worked for chefs in London and Paris restaurants. Under his tenure from 1996 to 1999 as head chef and then chef patron, Pied à Terre earned its two Michelin stars in January 1997.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
