Get to know the chefs competing for the Central England region in Great British Menu 2024
Birmingham-born Adam won the Roux Scholarship in 2012 aged just twenty-four and later staged under Yannick Alleno at Le Meurice in Paris. He began his career working as a pot washer in a small pub and soon fell in love with the atmosphere of the kitchen. After he finished catering college, Adam moved to London to work at the Ritz and ended up being there for ten years, working his way up to executive sous chef under John Williams. In 2016, Adam joined Coworth Park as executive chef and now leads a team across three sites including the Michelin-starred Restaurant Woven by Adam Smith. Adam loves to champion classic French cookery and believes that it’s the base to all great dishes. He also likes to take classical methods and put a modern twist on them to elevate them further.
A Norwich native, Liam made his way back to his home town to head up Store, where he has earned his first Michelin star for his sixteen seater restaurant. With Michelin experience under his belt from two-star restaurants Midsummer House and Restaurant Sat Bains, Liam gained further experience working in Melbourne and New York, before coming back to the UK to work at Kerridge's Bar and Grill. Liam wants his vision of a playful and exciting menu to come through in all of his cooking. His menu celebrates the podiums where you collect your medal and the first ever winner of an Olympic event.
Born in Luton and working as a private chef in Nottingham, Louisa creates bespoke tasting menus for her clients utilising all the skills that she has learned working in Michelin-starred kitchens. Louisa found her love of food through cooking with her family when she was younger. She went to catering college and found herself working at Michelin-starred Adam’s and The Wilderness in Birmingham, before appearing on Masterchef the Professionals in 2017 and making it all the way to the final. Louisa loves to create dishes using the best produce and cooking with the seasons to get the best flavour possible from ingredients. Her menu celebrates breaking, one of the new sports featuring at Paris 2024, and the opening ceremony planned for Paris.
Born in Worcester and working in London, Sam is Development chef for Tom Aikens at his Michelin-starred restaurant Muse in Belgravia. Sam has worked in a plethora of Michelin-starred kitchens; when he first started out he did stages at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, before working at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Restaurant Story and Michael Caines’ Gidleigh Park, where he has honed his skills. Before working as a senior sous chef at the Ledbury, Sam had his own six-month residency at Counter Culture, in Clapham, where he really began to develop his own cooking style. Sam likes to highlight vegetables on the plate and allow the proteins to help elevate those vegetables. His creativity stems from his family who are all in creative industries, and he embraces that by setting out to create food that excites people. His menu will celebrate the Paralympic opening ceremony.