With an incredible fifty years of experience as a chef, Shaun Hill has been cooking in Michelin-starred restaurants longer than many of his diners have been alive. After working in some of the UK’s most respected restaurants, he settled down at the famous Walnut Tree, winning it a Michelin star soon after. Shaun doesn’t change his menus to follow the trends or incorporate popular new ingredients into his dishes. Instead, his cuisine is simple, unfussy and allows the fantastic ingredients to shine – just as they should.

Two things matter the most to Cristina Bowerman – cooking creative Italian cuisine and inspiring a new generation of young female chefs. After fourteen years in the US she returned to Italy to work in Glass Hostaria, a beautiful contemporary restaurant in the centre of Rome. A Michelin star soon followed, and now diners travel far and wide to taste her modern interpretations of Italian classics. Outside of the kitchen, she runs a street food stall at the city’s famous Testaccio market, selling gourmet sandwiches, gelato and soup.

Abandoning thoughts of becoming a professional cricketer to follow his dreams in the kitchen, Galton Blackiston is a regular friendly face on television. But at his Michelin-starred Morston Hall in Norwich, he puts his full attention into taking the best of local produce and cooking it with incredible skill, masterful technique and a knowledge of flavour combinations that would put many other chefs to shame. While not afraid to incorporate exotic elements into his dishes, Galton’s close relationships with Norfolk producers means he has access to the very best ingredients.

With two Michelin stars to his name, Sat Bains is one of the greats. His eponymous restaurant has become the definition of destination dining, attracting intrepid foodies from all over the world to an industrial estate outside Nottingham. His almost scientific approach to tasting menus and how flavours work together results in some seriously unique dishes, but Sat still finds a way to inject some playfulness into his cooking. Not bad for a kid who only took cooking lessons to be close to girls.

An absolute legend amongst his peers, Nigel Haworth has been championing Lancashire’s amazing produce since the 1980s. His restaurant Northcote Manor, a shining star of the North West’s rich food scene in picturesque Langho, has held a Michelin star for twenty-two years – something which simply couldn’t happen without a dedicated chef like Nigel at the helm. His ability to take humble ingredients or traditional British dishes and turn them into refined, contemporary plates of food is awe-inspiring, and makes Nigel one of the true heroes of modern British cooking.