James Hawley

Career James Hawley’s kitchen training runs through Galvin Bistro and La Chapelle, and that line matters in the finished cooking: discipline first, then confidence, with neither treated as decoration. At The Wigmore in London, the work reads as Traditional British gastropub cooking with intent, aimed at the drink-in-hand snacker, the lingering diner, and anyone who understands that a toastie can be built with the same attention as any other plate.

The Climb

James Hawley trained at Galvin Bistro and La Chapelle, building technique in kitchens that helped set the terms of his approach. What comes through from that background is a style that keeps appetite and method in the same frame; the food does not reach for abstraction when directness will do. Today, James is Executive Chef of The Wigmore, a role that reflects a career assembled through control rather than display.

Today

At The Wigmore in London, Hawley holds the Executive Chef title over a kitchen whose identity is clearest in its handling of familiar British appetites. The cooking does not lean on nostalgia as a shortcut. Instead, the menu is allowed to speak plainly, with enough structure and finish to keep the plates from reading casual. The Stovetop Toastie is the restaurant’s clearest calling card. In its larger form, the XXL stovetop three-cheese-and-mustard toastie anchors the menu, direct enough to register from the bar and specific enough to define the house. It fits the pub setting, but it also reads as a chef’s move: a simple idea worked with care. That balance is the point. Comfort is handled seriously, while ambition stays approachable. The menu is built for different paces of service, from a quick bite with a drink to a longer meal that asks more of the kitchen. Hawley’s touch gives familiar food a little more shape, so even a straightforward craving arrives with added order.

Signature

James's signature dishes include Stovetop Toastie and XXL stovetop 3 cheese and mustard toastie.

Recognition

Hawley’s recognition at The Wigmore is attached most clearly to the food itself, especially the Stovetop Toastie and its XXL three-cheese-and-mustard form. In a kitchen devoted to Traditional British gastropub cooking, the dish works as both signature and shorthand: generous, direct, and built from comfort without losing its craft. The career line is equally plain: training at Galvin Bistro and La Chapelle, then the head chef role at the London restaurant, and then the Executive Chef position there. It is a contained progression, with each step reinforcing the one before it.