Lewis de Haas
Lewis de Haas
Having grown up regularly visiting the family allotment with his mother, Lewis de Haas has gone on to become a chef whose food is driven by seasonal produce – something clear for all to see on his menu at London’s Crispin.
It can be one of a number of different things which makes someone want to become a chef – a particularly special meal, time spent in the kitchen growing up, or even an obsession with a particular cookery show. For Lewis de Haas however, inspiration first came in the form of visiting his mother’s allotment as a child, and years on with positions in some of London’s most highly regarded restaurants under his belt, his passion for produce still shines through in his cooking.
Seeing the origin of the ingredients that his mother and grandfather were using in the kitchen whilst growing up in Dorset was what first piqued Lewis’ interest. ‘My connection with food first came from going down to the allotment with my mum,’ he explains. ‘I’d see the growing, the picking, the preparing and the cooking. Food became real for me very quickly rather than something just processed and sold.’ As a teenager set on becoming a professional chef, Lewis began working in a local café as a pot wash and went on to spent three years at Weymouth catering college – until London came calling.
Through a connection with one of the café owners, Lewis managed to land a job at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair working under Mark Hix. Though exciting, moving to London for the first time to join a team at somewhere as prestigious as Brown’s was an intimidating prospect for the young chef. ‘It was very daunting because everything was so different to what I was used to,’ says Lewis. ‘Mark Hix was at the forefront of a new style of British food at the time. Luckily there was a great network of chefs there, so I was well looked after and learnt lots of things very quickly.’ After three years spent at the hotel working as a demi chef de partie, Lewis briefly moved to Le Caprice in St. James, before being asked to return to Brown’s as junior sous chef in 2012. ‘It felt like a defining moment for me,’ he says. ‘It was a massive hotel so returning with a more managerial role to learn about the business side things was quite a big deal.’
Eventually in 2015, having spent over six years in total at Brown’s, Lewis decided it was time for a change. He soon found a position at Petersham Nurseries as a sous chef working under Damian Clisby. When Petersham’s large Covent Garden site opened two years later, he was offered his first head chef position at its restaurant La Goccia. ‘By that point, becoming head chef felt like a natural progression,’ explains Lewis. ‘I had quite a few years under my belt as sous chef whereas these days I think there’s a tendency for chefs to want to fast-track their way to the position. It felt good having creative control over what I was putting out and being quite heavily involved in the initial planning of the restaurant.’ Over the course of his time at La Goccia, Lewis was able to work closely with Haye Farm down in Dorset, designing the menu around what was available whilst also servicing the deli.
Leaving La Goccia in 2019, Lewis did a short stage at Copenhagen’s Amass, where the restaurant’s approach to sustainability made a real impression on him. ‘The way they worked was just so interesting,’ he says. ‘It was the little things; if we were washing salad leaves, for example, we weren’t allowed to let the plug out. We’d have to scoop it up and water the garden with it or use it to clean the floor. They also use every element of something like a tomato, whether it’s drying the skin to make salt or making an oil out of the leftovers.’ Returning to UK with fire in his belly, Lewis took over as head chef at The Shed, a sustainable farm-to-fork restaurant in Notting Hill, where he was able to continue developing the produce-led, sustainable style of cooking he’d become accustomed to.
It was whilst he was working at The Shed that the first COVID-19 lockdown hit, leading Lewis to helping out at The Avenues, a youth project and charity in Ladbroke Grove which had formerly supplied the deli at La Goccia. Spending four months there, he helped prepare over 100 food packages a day for those in need as well as preparing hot meals. After a year of opening and closing and various attempts at takeaway services, in the middle of 2021 Lewis left The Shed, having been offered the opportunity to become executive chef at East London café-cum-restaurant Crispin.
The more casual nature of Crispin appealed to Lewis' style, but what ultimately drew him in was the produce-driven nature of the kitchen. ‘There’s a real emphasis on the suppliers here,’ he explains. ‘We get the best products and there’s a lot freedom when it comes to the food. We’re not really tied down to any particular cuisine either – it just has to be seasonal and fit our style.’ This freedom, along with the variety of cooking everything from brunch to dinner and having the chance to regularly collaborate with other chefs and restaurants, has allowed Lewis to truly flourish at Crispin.
He may have worked in a variety of different restaurants over the course of his career but one thing that has remained consistent for Lewis is his commitment to using seasonal produce, just like his mum when he was growing up. And regardless of where he ends up cooking in the future, you can be sure that seasonal ingredients will be front and centre.
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