Tom Kitchin’s passion for Scottish seafood and respect for quality seasonal produce have made him one of the U.K.’s most famous chefs. Becoming the world’s youngest recipient of a Michelin star at age 29 might have brought him international recognition, but he remains faithful to his roots.
“My interest in cooking started when I was 13 years old, in the local pub washing pots and pans,” explains Kitchin. “I’d be lying if I said it was my dream [to run a restaurant] from that age, but I got the adrenalin rush of working in the kitchen. I loved it.”
He left school as soon as he could, spending five years in London and five years in France training with some of the world’s top chefs. He returned to Edinburgh, Scotland, to open his Michelin-starred and French-influenced restaurant The Kitchin, in June 2006. He chose to locate his restaurant in Leith, Edinburgh’s waterfront district that in recent years has undergone dramatic regeneration.
“The truth is that we were a young couple starting up a business, and the center of town would have been just too expensive,” he says. “So Leith was an opportunity, we believed in ourselves, and of course, Martin Wishart had been here for a few years. We knew restaurants were doing well here.”
Click here to read the full story which ran in the July issue of SeaFood Business magazine >
