Jeremy Lee

The Path

Training at High School of Dundee set the academic frame before Jeremy Lee began at the Old Mansion House Hotel in Auchterhouse, first as waiter and then in kitchen staff. Moving from front of house into the kitchen placed him on both sides of hospitality, with service and cooking treated as part of the same trade. At Bibendum in London, he cooked under Simon Hopkinson, a formative step inside one of the city’s most admired rooms. The line of head chef posts that followed at Frith Street Restaurant, Euphorium, and Blueprint Café in Design Museum, London (1994–2012) shows a career built by steady appointments rather than theatrics, each kitchen adding to a voice that would become recognisable on its own terms. Today, Jeremy is Chef Proprietor of Quo Vadis (since 2012). The title fixes the work in one address and gives the craft a place to gather: experience, authority, and a clear point of view under one roof.

The Work Today

Since 2012, Lee has led Quo Vadis in Soho as Chef Proprietor. In practice, that role binds together the food, the welcome, and the character of the room, so the kitchen is read alongside the dining room rather than apart from it. In a neighbourhood built on pace, the steadier mark is continuity, and Quo Vadis under Lee sits in that register. British cooking in his hands is described through three working principles: "Regionality, seasonality and locality are the main ingredients of British cuisine." That is a compact trade statement, with the emphasis on what belongs, what is in season, and what can be used with purpose. When he names the British Steamed Suet Pudding, he does so with the same directness: "I am mad for the British Steamed Suet Pudding which is a steamed syrup or treacle pudding made from the fat around beef or calf’s kidney." The dish sits in the plain, durable line of British comfort food, without apology. His own measure for the whole enterprise is equally clear: "I am convinced it has to be lovely, fun and with a lot of humor!" The kitchens, the family table, and the Soho dining room all read as part of the same working sensibility: food learned socially, practiced professionally, and kept alive with ease.

Signature

Jeremy's signature dishes include Smoked eel sandwich and British Steamed Suet Pudding.

In Their Words “I am mad for the British Steamed Suet Pudding which is a steamed syrup or treacle pudding made from the fat around beef or calf’s kidney.” “Regionality, seasonality and locality are the main ingredients of British cuisine.”

Acclaim

Jeremy's honors include Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Best Kitchen (2013), and Shortlisted for Newspaper Cookery Writer award at the Glenfiddich Awards.