TH E C HEF
A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE Celebrated for being one of the UK’s most acclaimed chefs, Tom Aikens sits down for a conversation with Serena Botelho e Warren at The Abu Dhabi EDITION, elaborating on his past, present and the future
What was it like gardening and cooking with your mother, and how did that spark your interest in food? I was eight years old and it was fun because we lived in Norfolk, UK, and its very well-known for growing crops and for arable farming. We lived just outside the city, near the countryside, and we had a very big vegetable garden. My mother grew everything seasonally, so we had vegetables growing all through the year from spring
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The Pro Chef Middle East / Edition 57
up to autumn. It was very much a luxury, because my brother and I could go into the garden, pick something and cook it. By the time we were eight, we were taken into the garden, shown what was growing and then we would help her do a bit of weeding, cutting and pruning. And then, we were given a little patch of garden to grow what we wanted to, which was mainly strawberries. By the time we were eleven or twelve, she started cooking with us because she could see that we liked food and it grew from there.
What was it about your holidays in France that inspired your flavour for French food? My father was in the grape business, and we had experiences of going to France with him when we had school breaks. We would travel as a family, sort of driving through the different grape regions and we'd always take a holiday somewhere in France. We quite often would stay off the motorway, and go through the country roads even though it would take a longer time to get anywhere. It was a much more scenic route and fun because you would find these little roadside cafés and restaurants that you wouldn't have found otherwise. I guess from the exploits of going to France, it was much a focus of going into French-style cooking myself.
If you can recall, what was the one dish that you tried and loved during those family trips to France? We were coming back from a ski holiday and, it was probably the first time we actually went skiing, and my father thought it was a good idea that we could drive all the way. We had been driving for a day and a half with a couple of stops on the way, and we stopped at this
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aving spent his childhood gardening and cooking with his mother at their home in Norfolk, whilst also picking up a flavour for French cuisine on family holidays in France, good food with fresh, seasonal ingredients became important to Tom Aikens at a very young age. Together with his brother Robert Aikens, who is also a chef, they learnt to prepare jams, chutneys, cakes and other homecooked dishes using vegetables picked from their own garden. Finding a career in food thus came naturally, and the gourmand boasts an impressive trajectory working with Joel Robuchon in Paris, Gérard Boyer in Reims, and at the exquisite Pied à Terre where he became the youngest British chef ever to be awarded two Michelin stars, aged just 26. Following years of experience in the F&B sector, Tom took time out of the kitchen in 2000 to immerse himself into the world of farming, alongside Carole Bamford, learning more about the importance of traceability and sustainability and eventually opening Daylesford Organics. Here, the culinary connoisseur discusses his childhood, his adult years as he made his debut into the food industry and what the future holds for him.
