Brett Graham

BRETT GRAHAM was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, in 1979. Growing up on his grandfather’s farm, his first job, aged 15, was an apprenticeship at a local fish restaurant called Scratchleys. At 18, he moved to Sydney to work with the Irish chef, Liam Tomlins, at his restaurant, Banc. During his three years there, he won the coveted Josephine Pignolet cookery award as Sydney's best young chef. The prize was a trip to the UK, and, while visiting, he landed a job at The Square, working for Phil Howard. He stayed there for a further three and a half years, winning the Restaurant Association's Young Chef of the Year title in 2002.

In 2005, Howard and his business partner Nigel Platts-Martin gave Graham, by now 26, the opportunity to open his own restaurant, The Ledbury. It was certainly a baptism of fire: ‘It was incredibly tough, both physically and mentally,’ said Graham in 2010. ‘Never having been a head chef before and suddenly having the responsibility of running a restaurant was very hard. What I found the most difficult was that people are so quick to knock you. Of five great reviews and one bad one, you only remember the bad one, and I took that quite hard because I felt like we were failing.’ But, supported by a young and energetic team, the restaurant opened to rave reviews, was awarded its first Michelin star within a year, and gained its second in 2010. In the same year, the Harwood Arms, a gastropub Graham had, in the meantime, opened together with TV chef Mike Robinson and publican Edwin Vaux in Fulham, became the first London pub to win a Michelin star. Despite having picked up the Menu of the Year Catey, Graham, and his protégé chef Stephen Williams, were taken greatly by surprise. Now in his mid-30s, Graham is one of a very elite group of (adopted) British chefs to have three Michelin stars to his name. While he undoubtedly has natural talent, he also apportions thanks to the assured guidance of his mentors, not least Howard. His modern French cuisine also adheres to the same values of seasonality as his mentor’s. Rooted in classical principles, his signature is the addition of the occasional exotic ingredient or introduction of a more progressive technique.