2024
January13th
It all started with my grandmother Elinor. We used to stay with her every Friday night, and every Saturday morning we would cook something. During the holidays, too. I have so many memories of cooking with her- I still use her pan to cook things in my kitchen!
More formally, I started my life in cooking at the age of 12 with a Saturday morning job at Newport’s Chez Giovanni. I knew that was my path: so after leaving school, I started full-time at the Cwrt Bleddyn Hotel near Usk. At 16, I decided to move to Scotland and work under the guidance of Head Chef Richard Lythe. He taught me the importance of seasonality, quality and the essence of flavour.
Whilst in Scotland I cooked for the opening of the Scottish Parliament and was also shortlisted for ‘Young Scottish Chef of the Year’.
And then you decided to come home to Wales?
It was while working in Scotland I met Louise. After we got married and had Georgia, our first daughter, it made sense to make the move back home and The Crown at Whitebrook.
I started there as sous chef in August 2000, becoming Head Chef in late 2003. I won my first Michelin star in 2007, an achievement I’m hugely proud of as I had come from a very different background, and retained it until 2013, when The Crown closed its doors.
Can you pick some career highlights?
In 2014 we opened Restaurant James Sommerin on the seafront in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan. We were awarded a Star a couple of years later, and held it until the pandemic made the restaurant unviable. Among all that turmoil, though, I was proud to be part of a local hospitality project providing over 26,000 meals for nearby NHS frontline workers. The family pulled together, working up to sixteen hours a day, and we were able to look after those who were doing so much for the rest of us.
Home came next, up in Penarth Town, and we were thrilled to receive a Michelin Star soon after.
The heart of what you do is family, isn’t it?
Today, Home is a family business in more than just name- Louise runs the business side, her twin sister Cath is front of house, and every day Georgia joins me at the stove. It’s a proud feeling, having seen her work her way up, and to see her represent her country twice on Great British Menu, the first as the competition’s youngest ever contestant.
It means so much to me that Georgia has decided to follow in my footsteps and work alongside me at every service. We share an understanding that is almost telepathic!
How would you describe the Home experience?
Home is so different to the restaurant we had on the seafront. There are no huge windows overlooking the promenade and the sea: the dining room is shielded from the street by thick velvet curtains and the whole room is so much more intimate and cosy.
That element of the unseen is key to us: the menu, as always, is a surprise, and we are driven by picking ingredients at their seasonal peak. I suppose ‘home’ means many things to many people. At its best, it’s where you can be your most relaxed and are surrounded by those who mean most to you. It’s where you belong. So we offer that to our guests: if you want to kick off your shoes under your table because that’s what makes you comfortable, then do it!
When we were discussing what to call the new restaurant, the idea we kept coming back to was that everything starts from us, as a family. ‘Home’ was the perfect fit. It’s what we want you to feel: when you walk through those curtains, we want you to know you will be well looked after, leaving your cares outside for a while. Truly ‘at Home’.
