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[title]London is awash with talented chefs and we’re thrilled to bring you three of this city’s brightest rising stars. Ella Williams of Peckham’s Hausu, Jay Claus of Rake at The Compton Arms and author Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares are cooking up relentlessly intriguing meals at their respective restaurants and pop-ups. Let us introduce you to the future of food.
Ella Williams
Ella Williams was destined for a life in restaurants. Born into a family of chefs, her dad specialised in classical French cuisine and cooked in a host of high-end kitchens across London, going on to open branches of celeb burger joint Planet Hollywood across the world. ‘He actually proposed to my mum on the phone from a job in Korea,’ explains Ella.
Starting out with a placement at Park Lane Hotel when she was 15, Ella – now 24 – honed her skills on the job, while simultaneously studying for a degree in film, and has already worked at some of the best restaurants in London, including Angela Hartnett’s Cafe Murano, Cinder in St John’s Wood and Crispin at Studio Voltaire in Clapham. She also recently hosted her own pop-up at the Marquee Moon bar in Dalston, serving yuzu and black lime ceviche, cornbread madeleines and jerk pork sandwiches.
‘Working for Angela was amazing,’ says Ella. ‘I’d been cooking for three years at that point, but it was the first restaurant where I felt comfortable being myself. I hadn’t told anyone I was gay before, nobody knew anything about me. It made me realise that being free to be yourself makes you a better chef.’
Ella’s been cooking at the hype-y Hausu in Peckham for the past year, first working with head chef Holly Middleton-Joseph at the Michelin-starred Mountain in Soho, but in the future, Ella has her sights set on a place of her own. In fact, she’s even got the location figured out. ‘In Soho, opposite Aimé Leon Dore, there’s an old public toilet. It’s been derelict for years but it’s the perfect space – I’ve found the plans! I’d really love to open a jazz bar there, with nibbles and cocktails and good wines.’
Jay Claus
For the past year, Islington’s Compton Arms has had powerhouse pair Rake cooking up a Ye Olde England-inspired storm in their tiny kitchen. Walthamstow-based Jay Claus is half of the merry duo, who – alongside his partner in culinary mayhem Cyrus Pickhaver – has been dishing up London’s mightiest Sunday roast, as well as a menu that flips historical British treasures into contemporary pub classics.
Take, for example, their Victorian-esque beer-battered cockles and clams, or King Henry VIII-worthy smoked pork jowl with sorrel. ‘We go through really old cookbooks and the writings of Samuel Pepys, then style it our own way and pull it into the modern age,’ he explains of Rake, the name chosen for its roustabouting, Byronic feel. ‘It’s like a history project. It’s life-affirming food.’
Jay started his illustrious career flipping burgers in Brighton at 17. ‘I had no idea what I wanted to do,’ he says. A few years later, and Jay’s brother was working at Soho mainstay Quo Vadis, and Jay 'surreptitiously’ scored himself a job there as a kitchen porter. Since then he’s darted through some of London’s most impressive restaurants, with stints everywhere from Morito to Brat, as well as the now-shuttered Taiwanese teahouse Xu, as well as being a key part of the opening teams at the Borough Market branch of Bao and Peckham Cellars. His last position before setting up Rake was as head chef at Dalston’s Acme Fire Cult, meeting the Cornwall-born Cyrus behind the grill. ‘I think with all the best friendships, we were unsure of each other at first, but I don’t know of many chefs who are quite as aligned as we are now.’
Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares
Unlike our other young chefs, Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares categorically does not want to open her own restaurant. ‘Nope!’ she says. ‘It would give me a borderline panic attack.’ Instead, she’d much rather host a documentary about the lesser seen foods of Japan, where she currently lives, splitting her time equally between Tokyo and London.
‘I would love to do a TV show, that’s my seven year plan,’ explains Millie, who moved to Japan when writing her book, Umai: Recipes From a Japanese Home Kitchen. ‘I’d travel around and cook with chefs from places like Kobe, which is my favourite city, with loads of great jazz bars, pastries and Italian food.’
Raised in Notting Hill, Millie started out in food after applying to be a kitchen porter at Four Legs. ‘I didn’t actually know what it was, but it turned out to be the most fun, ever,’ says Mille of her strangely enjoyable stint washing dishes. Next came a job with restaurant PR kingpins Gemma Bell & Company, while Millie was simultaneously making her own recipe zines, eventually leading to her acclaimed debut cookbook. ‘A lot of people think that Japanese recipes are super inaccessible, but I wanted to do ones you could easily make at home in London.’ When she’s in London, Millie cooks at pop-ups across the country, including recent events at The Old Pharmacy in Bruton, Somerset, as well as at Giacco’s in Finsbury Park, People’s Wine in Dalston and Italo in Vauxhall. There’s even been a pastry collab with Toad Bakery in Camberwell.
Not just an outrageously talented cook, Millie also works in social media, PR and marketing for a host of different restaurants as well as a matcha brand. You also might have seen her on Sunday Brunch, cooking up recipes from Umai. ‘Cooking is really kind of a hobby that turned into something more,’ she explains.