Not since Marco Pierre White opened Harveys in the late 80s has a British chef made such an impression on the London scene as Ollie Dabbous. Within days of his eponymous Fitzrovia restaurant opening in 2012, the Evening Standard’s Fay Maschler had announced that the ‘unflinchingly urban and gritty’ establishment had ‘changed the game’ and awarded a rare five out of five stars. Other critics, including AA Gill and Tom Parker Bowles, queued up to do the same. It was inevitable that Dabbous, who had harboured ambitions to be a chef from the age of six and spent school holidays cooking in London, Florence and Paris to gain experience and went on to work at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, Hibiscus, Mugaritz, Noma, WD-50, The Fat Duck, L’Astrance, Pierre Gagnaire and Texture (where he was head chef), would win his own star, which came just eight months after the restaurant’s launch. Dabbous went on to open the casual dining, no reservations Barnyard in 2014 where Londoners queued to Instagram the barbecued beef short ribs, and then went on to consult on a restaurant at the Henrietta Hotel in Covent Garden. Since 2018, Dabbous has concentrated his considerable culinary talents on Hide, a £20million, three story restaurant and bar overlooking Green Park. The joint venture with Russian entrepreneur Yevgeny Chichvarkin, who also owns the exclusive Hedonism wine shop in Mayfair, includes the basement Below bar, Ground casual all day dining restaurant and Above fine dining restaurant where the exquisite 10-course tasting menu features the signature ‘Nest Egg’ (a rich and intensely flavoured coddled egg with smoked butter and mushrooms) and luxurious dishes such as Cornish lobster barbecued in the shell with sage honey and lemon. “I can only cook in one way and that’s quite a minimalist approach showcasing the very best ingredients in an organic manner, but also in a way that hopefully hasn’t been done before, a fresh perspective on certain things, a fresh way of cooking things and serving them,” says Dabbous. In 2013, Dabbous won the prestigious Newcomer Award at The Catey awards (the hospitality industry’s equivalent of the Oscars). Dabbous: The Cookbook was published in 2014 and won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award, Best Chef Cookbook 2015. He has also undertaken several overseas residencies, including with The Lalit hotel group in India and Mandarin Oriental in Taipei.