ACCOLADES | Andrew Clarke - London Chef & Restaurateur

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A N D R E W · C L A R K E

Chef Andrew Clarke - Tom Parker Bowles Review - cherrystone clam - St Leonards Restaurant Shoreditch London haute cuisine

Poise and subtlety when needed, but then no fear of going balls-out on the big flavours. There’s real art here, and startling originality too.

- Tom Parker Bowles, The DailyMail

Chef Andrew Clarke - Outlaw Magazine Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

Andrew Clarke is Britain's premier rock'n'roll chef, with an award-winning restaurant and vital charity campaign to his name. But it's been a long, hard road. Mark Blake hears a hair-raising tale of drugs, booze and 70-day matured beef.

- Outlaw Magazine

Chef Andrew Clarke - Sunday Times Lisa Markwell Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

Their food — simple vegetables and sparkling fresh seafood, hearty grilled cuts of meat to share, punchy pickles and foraged herb garnishes — display all their influences. Monkfish glazed with molasses has become a signature dish, while rustic options such as a garlicky dip or an earthy tomato sauce hint at their personalities. (Clarke, in particular, looks thrash metal but cooks with incredible delicacy and finesse.)

- Lisa Markwell, The Sunday Times

Chef Andrew Clarke - Big Hospitality Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

“I don't want this industry to be seen as something that causes mental health issues. It is hard work and it can cause stress but there's a growing number of people who want to combat that and make it a great place to work. We want to give everyone the tools they need to do so.”

- Andrew Clarke, Big Hospitality

Chef Andrew Clarke - Ladbible Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

Clarke understands and appreciates the noisy, boisterous environment of a kitchen - likening it to the fact that you 'can't play a game of football quietly' - but is vehemently against what happens when this mutates into something far more sadistic: bullying.

- Jess Hardiman, LADbible

PRESS & REVIEWS

Chef Andrew Clarke -The Guardian Jay Rayner review - St Leonards Restaurant Shoreditch London haute cuisine

At one point, knowing my tastes, Clarke passed me a plate of thick-cut, long-simmered pork jowl, with a massive ribbon of ivory fat at its back. It is destined for the next day’s menu and I ask if he’s “gone insane”. Filthy expletives may have been involved. I adore fatty pig more than most, but this is to get armpit-deep in the stuff.

- Jay Rayner, The Guardian

Chef Andrew Clarke - Sunday Times Marina O'Laughlin Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

... Andrew Clarke, an amiable, tattooed Viking of a man whose creativity I’ve long perved over. His work, like that of a contemporary artist, is rooted in classicism and technique, over which he basically goes a bit tonto.

- Marina O'Laughlin, The Sunday Times

Chef Andrew Clarke - The Guardian Jay Rayner Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

“I was cooking 100 hours a week. I was barely sleeping, barely eating.” He hesitates. “There’s also the culture of ‘if it doesn’t hurt, it’s not yours’.’’ He admits he needs stress, lives for it. Indeed, like so many of the cooks I talked to, he says that the job which did him so much damage is also the one he loves.

Jay Rayner, The Guardian

Chef Andrew Clarke - Brummell Review - Hospitality Mental Health- St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

When you meet a successful person like Clarke, with his friendly optimism and huge talent, it’s easy to forget that there can be hidden vulnerabilities, but he is keen to assert that ‘even a big guy who looks like me’ (Clarke has long hair, a long plaited beard and tattoos decorating both of his arms) can feel the effects of mental illness.

- BRUMMELL

Chef Andrew Clarke - Evening Standard May Maschler Review -Brunswick House Restaurant Vauxhall London haute cuisine

The last time I wrote about Clarke it was to depict him as a jolly giant tending a Big Green Egg cooker at Rita’s Bar & Dining in Hackney. There is something about his sweet persona clasped in burly, inky arms, fringed by facial hair soft as an Edward Lear nest, that brings out the children’s book author in me.

- Fay Maschler, EveningStandard

Chef Andrew Clarke - The Caterer Review - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

“We can't necessarily do anything about pay, we can't necessarily do anything about the hours, but we can do a lot about bullying.”

- Andrew Clarke, The Caterer

Chef Andrew Clarke - Men's Health Review - Hospitalisty Mental Health - St Leonards Restaurant - Shoreditch London haute cuisine

“There are so many things we can’t actually change in our industry: the pay’s not great, there are long hours, you’re probably going to cut or burn yourself. But we can look out for each other. We can give each other the armour to get through a tough job.”

- Andrew Clarke, Men's Health

Chef Andrew Clarke - The Staff Canteen Review - Brunswick House St Leonard Restaurant - Shoreditch Vauxhall London haute cuisine

“There’s been a lot of negativity in the media in terms of pay, mental health and drugs – the industry will heal itself and we need as many people as possible to stand up and make sure it survives this shitty reputation it is getting.”

- Andrew Clarke, The Staff Canteen

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