Patrick Powell
Patrick Powell
After spending four years running the kitchen at the renowned Chiltern Firehouse, Irish chef Patrick Powell was given the opportunity to open his debut restaurant Allegra in Stratford, where he served seasonal British fare in an impressive space.
Carving out a career as a successful chef isn’t just a case of being talented, it’s about taking risks; about being driven and knowing when it’s time for a new challenge. Over the course of his career Patrick Powell has found himself climbing the ranks in many of the best restaurants in London, Ireland and further afield, working for some of the most respected chefs around. But rather than getting too comfy in any particular kitchen, he’s always followed his instinct and moved on to better his career. This culminated in him opening his first restaurant Allegra in 2019, where he is currently dazzling diners with his seasonal British menu.
Born in Ireland, Patrick’s interest in food was first piqued by watching daytime cookery shows on TV as a teenager. ‘I just loved watching Ready Steady Cook,’ he laughs. ‘We didn’t have loads of amazing food growing up; it was just sustenance really, all very Irish with a lot of carbs.’ It was when his sister began going out with a chef, who would lend Patrick various cookbooks, that he truly began to get the cookery bug. Aged fifteen he got a job as a pot wash at his cousin’s seaside restaurant in Ballina, County Mayo and over the next five years began to actually prepare the food. ‘The restaurant was on the way back from the beach so in the summer it was just wild,’ explains Patrick. ‘It was by no means a high-end place and because it was a rural sort of area you’d get these very rogue chefs, but I just loved it.’
His break came when Seamus Commons, the former head chef of the Michelin-starred Dublin institution L’Ecrivain, took over the kitchen in Ballina and took Patrick under his wing. Collins soon sent him away to gain experience in the one-star kitchen he’d formerly been in charge of. ‘I suddenly went from this small seaside place to a very intense Michelin-starred kitchen,’ he says. ‘This was towards the end of the Celtic Tiger boom so we’d do a hundred covers on a Monday lunch and these businessmen were just throwing money around.’ After spending three years at L’Ecrivain and working his way up to the position of junior sous chef, Patrick decided it was time to leave Ireland.
Spending the next few years travelling all over the world, he went out to South America before ultimately ending up in Melbourne for two years, where he worked for chef Andrew McConnell at his award-winning restaurant Cutler & Co. Patrick eventually returned home to Ireland at the age of twenty-six, deciding that he couldn’t base himself so far away from home. After working in a local hotel for six months, he moved to London in 2011 where he briefly worked at the newly opened Pollen Street Social before settling down at Anthony Demetre’s much-acclaimed Wild Honey in Mayfair. ‘What I learnt from Anthony was invaluable,’ says Patrick. ‘That man can really cook and he’s always been so supportive. I still have a very good relationship with him today.’
Working his way up to the position of sous chef, he eventually left Wild Honey in 2013 to head up the kitchen at AD12, a twelve-week pop-up at the City’s Tower 42, but it was once AD12 had closed that Patrick landed the biggest job of his career to date – the opportunity to be the head chef of the newly opened Chiltern Firehouse, working alongside executive chef Nuno Mendes. ‘I had no idea what I was stepping into and then I realised very quickly what the Firehouse was going to become,’ he says. ‘Nuno’s just wildly creative and it was amazing to learn so much from him. I was initially only meant to be there only for two or three months to help out but I ended up spending four years there as head chef. We had an amazing team and were serving very nice food but we were doing about 600 covers a day religiously, and eventually I just needed a change. I still felt like I needed to prove myself.’
Patrick handed in his notice, not knowing what was next for him, but was quickly contacted by property-developer Harry Handelsman who had overseen the creation of Chiltern Firehouse and had his eye on Patrick to take charge of a brand-new seventh-floor restaurant concept in Stratford called Allegra. Enticed by the opportunity to bring his own style of food to an up-and-coming part of London, he spent the next year working with designers to ensure the space matched up to his vision for the restaurant. ‘The idea was that people shouldn’t feel like they’re in a tall building’, explains Patrick. ‘We wanted the space to be all about escapism and timelessness, which is why it’s inward looking. The design process was just such an amazing thing to be a part of.’
After multiple delays, Allegra eventually opened in 2019. It then of course suffered at the hands of the COVID-19 lockdown and had to close just as it was getting started, but in 2021 the restaurant was finally able to open its doors once more and create the impact it was always set to achieve. Its seasonal menu used a number of different techniques such as fermentation and curing to boost the flavour profiles of the predominantly British produce, and was influenced by Patrick's time spent working in other kitchens. ‘There’s a lot of Frenchness to what we do here which comes from my time working with Anthony, but a lot of the quirks, the different ways of seasoning stuff and looking at things, comes from Nuno.’
In 2023, Patrick and Harry joined forces on another project; the Midland Grand Dining Room within the St Pancras Renaissance hotel in London's King's Cross. However, in July 2024, Patrick announced he would be stepping down from both Allegra and the Midland Grand Dining Room, saying he was 'hugely excited' for his next chapter. A few weeks later, Allegra announced its closure.
SITES
