About Steve
About Steve
I always describe myself as firstly an eater, and then a chef. I learnt to cook professionally so I could bring the utter joy food gives me with others.
It's been said time and time again but it's true, food is the international language of the world. Wherever you go, whoever you are with food is something that can bring anyone together. It's comfort, it's joyful, it's engrained in every culture and the centrepiece of almost every celebration. At it's core, our relationship with food defines us as humans; cooking itself defined our evolution!
“To me food is a gift, it's a treasure, it's something to learn and it's something to share.”
The most exciting part of anyone's food journey is finding, developing and honing your own cooking style and finding 'your food'. This itself can be an endless road - and that really excites me!
What really set me on my food journey was my time as Head Chef to Jamie Oliver in London. Working across his cookery schools, gaining experience of seasonal, simple, delicious and accessible food based on cuisines, styles and ingredients from across the world. The icing on the cake for directing my food style was my time as a New Product Development manager; working with food manufacturers across the country, designing food products for the major supermarkets and brands like Nando's and KFC. This gave me an insight on a massive scale into what people are eating, what people want to eat and most importantly how to strip food right back to it's simplest forms without compromising on flavour.
I call my style of food 'Pretty Simple Food' - it's about simply cooking, using seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, presented in a comforting, thoughtful and accessible way. My ethos - make it delicious, make it generous, make it fun!
More recently, my focus has moved towards our relationship with food, food and the environment and how we can make better food choices to enable us to help the environment and support local businesses and economies, without compromising what food means to us as individuals.
Get in touch - I am available as a personal chef, a food consultant and a food educator. Give me a call - even if you just want to have a quick chat about food!