Carla Jones

The Climb

Pierre Koffman is where the early groundwork sits: a training base that, for Carla Jones, led into kitchen leadership built on repetition, timing, and service pressure rather than theory. That path continued through head-chef and chef-director appointments, including Seacliff at Sandy Cove in Devon and ANIMA in Braunton, roles that show both day-to-day command and responsibility for the wider shape of a kitchen. The through-line in Jones’s work is a sea-to-table discipline. Sustainable fish, seasonal ingredients, and the catch of the day define the framework; the dish follows the product, not the other way around. That approach reads as controlled rather than decorative, with the ingredient setting limits and the kitchen working inside them.

Today

The Kith in São Paulo is the current point of contact for Carla Jones’s work, where she serves as Executive Chef. It is also the Brazilian restaurant tied to her Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition, placing her cooking far from Wales while keeping the same operating logic: clarity of sourcing, seasonal restraint, and a menu language that stays close to the product. The catch comes first in Jones’s method. “We build dishes around the catch rather than forcing ingredients into a preconceived idea,” she says, and that line lays out the structure plainly. Sustainable fish leads, the rest of the plate answers, and waste reduction sits inside the process rather than being added as a slogan. The result is a kitchen practice built on responsiveness, not fixed composition. Across Cornwall and São Paulo, the work stays legible through the same priorities: fish, seasonality, and a disciplined refusal to overwork the ingredient. The settings change, but the method does not. That consistency is what gives the career its shape.

In Their Words “I like the thing that we're showcasing what Australia has to offer and doing as little to it as possible very minimal garnish but just showcasing the quality of ingredients.” “We build dishes around the catch rather than forcing ingredients into a preconceived idea.”

Recognition

Carla Jones’s honors include Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024) and Silver medal at the Culinary Olympics.