Ollie Moore
Ollie Moore
Ollie Moore combines expert technique with lesser known ingredients to create truly unique dishes full of interesting, tasty flavours.
After a spell as sous chef at The Black Rat in Winchester, Ollie was promoted in 2014 to head chef and immediately impressed with his assured touch and flair for dish construction. The promotion was just rewards for a decade of grind in some of Britain’s most thoroughbred of kitchens. After initially hoping to become an actor, Ollie entered the world of cooking through the trapdoor – spending two years catering in a nursing home before being taken under the wing of Mark Jordan at Jersey’s Ocean at The Atlantic restaurant.
His spell in Jersey coincided with the restaurant winning its first Michelin star, with Ollie performing a pivotal role on the pastry section and earning the title of chef de partie. After serving his time in Jersey, Ollie moved back to the mainland to work at Peter Gorton's The Horn of Plenty for eighteen months, then took off for Wiltshire to work closely with Gordon Ramsay-trained chef Richard Davies at Manor House. Before joining The Black Rat, the chef took on short stages in Manhattan and at Richard Branson's property in Morocco.
Ollie’s cuisine is underpinned by a passion for wild and forgotten ingredients – with off-cuts (he has been known to cook with tendons) and whimsical herbs (sea buckthorn, sorrel and verbena oil often feature in his desserts) all part of his repertoire. But it isn't enough for Ollie to merely use these ingredients for garnish or presentation – rowan berries may be tucked away in focaccia, salty preserved lemons adorn a white chocolate 'aero' and mugwort flavours a panna cotta. Comparisons have been made to the gastronomy of Simon Rogan and David Everitt-Matthias, but Ollie is keen to remain his own man.
Ollie certainly found his groove at The Black Rat, but left in 2016 to pursue the next chapter of his career. Since then he's worked as a self-employed freelance chef in restaurants both in the UK and Europe, as well as becoming a private chef, cooking incredible dinners in people's homes.
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