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Simon Hopkinson | |
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| Born | Simon Charles Hopkinson 5 June 1954 [1] Bury, Lancashire, England [1] |
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Simon Charles Hopkinson (born 5 June 1954) is an English food writer, critic and former chef. He published his first cookbook, Roast Chicken and Other Stories, in 1994.
Hopkinson was born in Greenmount, Bury, in 1954, the son of a dentist father and a mother who taught art at Bury Grammar School. [2] At the age of eight he was awarded a chorister's scholarship to St John's College School in Cambridge. [2] At 13 he moved to Trent College, near Nottingham. [2] [3]
Hopkinson started his career at the age of 17 in the kitchens of Le Normandie in Birtle, near Bury, Lancashire, under the supervision of Yves Champeau. Following on from this, in 1978 he became the youngest chef to acquire an Egon Ronay Guide star with his restaurant the Shed in Dinas in Pembrokeshire, West Wales.
He spent the next two and a half years as an Egon Ronay inspector. He returned to London, and, after a three-year stint as a private chef, he was installed at Hilaire, which opened in Old Brompton Road in 1983. A friendship with the Conrans led to the establishment of Bibendum in 1987, where he worked as the chef and joint proprietor with Sir Terence Conran and the late Lord Paul Hamlyn. [4]
Bibendum was created out of the abandoned Michelin House on Fulham Road, which served as Michelin's UK headquarters from 1911 to 1985. Inside the restaurant, Hopkinson continued his philosophy of well-judged simple cooking which he garnered from his influences Richard Olney, Jane Grigson and Elizabeth David. [5]
He also began a cookery column in The Independent and in 1994 his first book, Roast Chicken and Other Stories (co-authored with Lindsey Bareham), was published. It later won a Glenfiddich Food and Drink Award. [6] In 2005, it was voted "Most Useful Cookbook of All Time" by Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine. [7]
Also in 1994, Hopkinson suffered what he termed a "mini-breakdown" during restaurant service one evening. He left Bibendum early in 1995 to devote his time to cookery writing. He was replaced as the head chef by Matthew Harris. [7]
In June 2011, Hopkinson presented his cooking show The Good Cook, every Friday after The One Show on BBC. The series consisted of 6 episodes, being frequently repeated on BBC Two and some excerpts used on BBC One's Saturday Kitchen . From June 2013, Hopkinson has presented a new show called Simon Hopkinson Cooks on Channel 4's digital channel More4.
Christopher Richard Stein, is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur, writer and television presenter. Along with business partner Jill Stein, he has run the Stein hotel and restaurant business in the UK. The business has a number of renowned restaurants, shops and hotels in Padstow along with other restaurants in Marlborough, Winchester and Barnes. He is also the head chef and a co-owner of the "Rick Stein at Bannisters" restaurants in Mollymook and Port Stephens in Australia, with his second wife, Sarah. He has written cookery books and presented television programmes.
Raymond Blanc OBE is a French chef. Blanc is the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, a hotel-restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, England. The restaurant has two Michelin stars and scored 9/10 in the Good Food Guide. He is entirely self-taught, but has himself taught or employed other chefs including Heston Blumenthal, John Burton-Race, Michael Caines, Paul Liebrandt, and Marco Pierre White.
A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become a celebrity. Today, chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations, usually through the media of television and radio, or in printed publications. While television is ultimately the primary way for a chef to become a celebrity, some have achieved this through success in the kitchen, cook book publications, and achieving awards such as Michelin stars, while others are home cooks who won competitions.
Heston Marc Blumenthal is a English celebrity chef, TV personality and food writer. Blumenthal is regarded as a pioneer of multi-sensory cooking, food pairing and flavour encapsulation. He came to public attention with unusual recipes, such as bacon-and-egg ice cream and snail porridge. His recipes for triple-cooked chips and soft-centred Scotch eggs have been widely imitated. He has advocated a scientific approach to cooking, for which he has been awarded honorary degrees from Reading, Bristol and London universities and made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Sir Terence Orby Conran was a British designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. He founded the Design Museum in Shad Thames, London in 1989. The British designer Thomas Heatherwick said that Conran "moved Britain forward to make it an influence around the world." Edward Barber, from the British design team Barber & Osgerby, described Conran as "the most passionate man in Britain when it comes to design, and his central idea has always been 'Design is there to improve your life.'" The satirist Craig Brown once joked that before Conran "there were no chairs and no France."
Nigel Slater is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written a column for The Observer Magazine for over a decade and is the principal writer for the Observer Food Monthly supplement. Prior to this, Slater was a food writer for Marie Claire for five years.
Jean-Christophe Novelli is a French celebrity chef.
John Douglas Torode is an Australian-British celebrity chef and TV presenter. He moved to the UK in the 1990s and began working at Conran Group's restaurants. After first appearing on television on ITV's This Morning, he started presenting a revamped MasterChef on BBC One in 2005. He is a restaurateur; former owner of the Luxe and a second restaurant, Smiths of Smithfield. He has also written a number of cookbooks, including writing some with fellow MasterChef presenter and judge, Gregg Wallace.
Robbie Millar was a head chef and restaurateur from Ballycarry in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
Jeremy James Lee is a British chef and chef proprietor at Quo Vadis, London. He had previously been head chef at the Blueprint Café for eighteen years.
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Head Chef is an Irish cookery series on TV3, one of Ireland's national broadcasters. The series featured Conrad Gallagher, the youngest ever chef to win a Michelin star, and aired from 8 April 2011 to 27 May 2011.
Thomas Kerridge is an English chef. After initially appearing in several small television parts as a child actor, he decided to attend culinary school at the age of 18. He has since worked at a variety of British restaurants, including the Rhodes in the Square and Adlards.
Claude Bosi is a French chef.
Hibiscus was a London restaurant which was owned and run by French chef Claude Bosi. It was opened in 2000 in Ludlow, Shropshire, and won its first Michelin star within a year, and a second in the 2004 Guide. In July 2006, Bosi and his wife Claire announced that they were to sell the location in Ludlow and move closer to London. The property was sold to Alan Murchison, and Bosi purchased a new site on Maddox Street in London. The restaurant closed in 2016.
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The Restaurant Marco Pierre White, also known as The Restaurant, Restaurant Marco Pierre White and later Oak Room Marco Pierre White, was a restaurant run by chef proprietor Marco Pierre White. The Restaurant was opened at the Hyde Park Hotel, London, on 14 September 1993, after White left his previous restaurant, Harveys. Following the move, the kitchen staff was more than doubled in number, and White used Pierre Koffmann's La Tante Claire as a template to pursue his third Michelin star. This was awarded in the 1995 Michelin guide. White then moved the restaurant to the Le Méridien Piccadilly Hotel, London, in 1997, taking on the listed Oak Room as the main dining room. He sought a further rating of five red forks and spoons in the guide, to gain the highest possible rating for the restaurant. It gained this award in the following guide.
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