Head Chef

Tom Spenceley

Discipline: Head Chef

Portrait of Tom Spenceley

i. Biography

Tom Spenceley is Head Chef of The Ledbury in London, a role he has held since 2022. His cooking is Modern British, shaped by seasonal locally sourced ingredients, foraging, and supply from the restaurant’s farms and the wild. In that frame, seasonality is not a slogan but a working constraint: what is ready, what is close, what can be gathered, and what the kitchen can make precise. A responsive menu depends on more than procurement.

Weather, soil, growth, and discovery affect the work before technique begins. At The Ledbury, the year sets part of the pace, and Spenceley’s task is to turn cultivated ground and found ingredients into dishes with clarity, modernity, and a fixed sense of place. “I'm cooking or I'm the chef. Um, previously done it with an old chef that I work for. Um, so it's kind of a full circle moment which is amazing for me.” Tom has said.

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The Current Work

Since 2022, the kitchen at The Ledbury in London has been led by Spenceley as Head Chef. Its language is Modern British cuisine, with seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, foraging, and the restaurant’s farms and the wild forming part of the menu’s rhythm. The kitchen is built to look outward: toward what is growing, what is gathered, and what can be used at a particular moment. Place and season are treated as operating conditions.

Farms, wild ingredients, and the experience of major London kitchens meet in the cooking at The Ledbury. The result is a fine-dining register that still depends on raw material, timing, and the discipline to let supply shape the work. Seasonal produce, locally sourced ingredients, and foraging function as structure rather than decoration. The restaurant’s farms and the wild help determine what appears and when. The menu therefore behaves less like a fixed document and more like a working response to the year.

Credentials

Tom's honors include Second Michelin star for Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs (2019), Second Michelin star for Restaurant Sat Bains during Spenceley's time there, Second Michelin star restored for The Ledbury during Spenceley's tenure as Head Chef, Third Michelin star for The Ledbury during Spenceley's tenure as Head Chef, and Four AA rosettes held at Typing Room under Spenceley as Head Chef. The recognitions mark repeated work in kitchens where consistency is measured extern

Career

Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs
London
- Head Cheffrom 2018
Technique and discipline were established early in the kitchen of Restaurant Sat Bains
where Tom Spenceley worked for Sat Bains. That environment is known for intensity, structure, and ambition, and during Spenceley’s time there, Restaurant Sat Bains earned its Second Michelin star. The relevance is practical: a kitchen at that level teaches control, restraint, and the daily repetition required for consistency. London leadership followed at Typing Room in London, where Spenceley was Head Chef. Under Spenceley as Head Chef, Typing Room held Four AA rosettes. The role placed him in a contemporary city dining room where the work was not only cooking but holding a line: shaping the kitchen’s voice, maintaining standards service after service, and keeping focus under pressure. Another exacting London setting came with Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs in London, where Spenceley became Head Chef from 2018. In 2019, Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs received its Second Michelin star. The recognition sits with a form of cooking and leadership that depends on timing, ingredient judgment, and the ability to keep technique fluent in a high-performance room. The current post at The Ledbury follows a path through Restaurant Sat Bains, Typing Room in London, and Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs in London. The through-line is not a single style imposed on different rooms, but a repeated test of precision, consistency, and leadership in kitchens with serious expectations.
- Role
The Ledbury
London
- Head Chef
Restaurant Sat Bains
- Worked for Sat Bains
Typing Room
London
- Head Chef

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The Sunday email

Read about chefs like Tom Spenceley in the Sunday email.

Every Sunday we send a lead story and up to four more about the chefs, winemakers, sommeliers and hoteliers behind the restaurants, bars, wineries and hotels we cover.

Tom Spenceley

i. Biography

Read about chefs like Tom Spenceley in the Sunday email.

The Current Work

Credentials

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Read about chefs like Tom Spenceley in the Sunday email.