Chef Oliver Pagani

In 2012 I began my career straight out of University in Yotam Ottolenghi's flagship fine-dining restaurant NOPI in London. I learnt about creative and flavourful cooking underneath Ramael Scully, the executive chef. I worked for a period in Michelin starred restaurant Dabbous where I developed refinement and elegance in my cookery. To get in closer touch with my heritage I worked in renowned regional Italian restaurant Bocca di Lupo where I learnt about the complexity of 'simple' Italian cuisine and the maximisation of flavour with immaculate produce. I worked for a time with the charity Chefs in Schools to order to help improve the school food of Britain's primary and secondary school systems. We went from 3 to 70+ schools with children eating nutritious and interesting food, as a result I know what children will eat and how to inspire them to eat more nutrition. I returned to Ottolenghi as Development Chef where I designed the iconic salads and catering menus that Ottolenghi built their business on. I combined creativity with practicality, creating menus while running their events and caterings. Meanwhile, I taught the Natural Chef and Vegan Chef coursees at the College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) in London, as a result I have significant experience with dietary sensitivities and vegan cooking.

I love the creative side of cooking, whilst a classic recipe and classic pairings are wonderful and fun to perfect, I love how artistic and fun food creating can be, taking ideas from the greats and adapting them to my own style and flair. My cooking is often cross-cultural. My heart will always remain with my personal heritage in Italian cooking and professional heritage in Middle Eastern but I explore the possibilities of cooking with everything from French and Japanese precision and flavours to the robust and powerful cuisines of Malaysia, Ethiopia, China and many more.