Yotam Ottolenghi

The Climb

Yotam Ottolenghi’s work is built from editing, pastry, restaurant cooking, and public writing, with Jerusalem, Israel as the point of origin and London as the city that made the operation visible. As chef-patron of the Ottolenghi group in London, he has shaped a style that treats vegetables, colour and spice as core structure rather than garnish. He puts the authorship plainly: “My ability to present food that is from various parts of the world and has got different influences, it’s not really me, it’s about the people who work with me.” That emphasis on collaboration reads through the whole body of work. Formal pastry training at Le Cordon Bleu sits alongside an early career that moved through text, editing and institutional kitchens. He was a conscripted serviceman at IDF intelligence headquarters at Israel Defence Forces in Israel (1989–1992), then a night copy editor at Haaretz (until 1997), and later editor, hebrew section at NIW (Dutch-Jewish weekly) in Amsterdam (from 1997). The sequence matters: the discipline of copy, the pressure of deadlines, and the habit of shaping material cleanly all feed the clarity that later shows up in his food writing and restaurant voice. Pastry is where that precision first became kitchen practice in London. He worked as pastry chef at Capital Restaurant in London, then as pastry chef at Kensington Place in London, and later as pastry chef at Launceston Place in Kensington New Town, London, before becoming head pastry chef at Baker and Spice in London (from 1999). The role asked for control, repetition and finish, but also for a willingness to push sweetness, structure and presentation without losing line or balance. Writing widened the audience for that approach. He became columnist, "the new vegetarian" at The Guardian (from 2006), bringing recipes and ideas to readers in a format that values utility as much as style. Television followed with host at Jerusalem on a Plate (BBC4) (2011), host at Ottolenghi's Mediterranean Feast (More4) (2012), host at Ottolenghi's Mediterranean Island Feast (More4) (2013), and guest judge at Masterchef Australia (2017–2021). Across those formats, the throughline is the same: direct instruction, broad reference, and a way of speaking about food that stays grounded in the plate. As co-founder of Ottolenghi (since 2002) and co-owner of Ottolenghi group delis and restaurants (since 2002), his name is tied to a format as much as an individual restaurant. He is chef-patron of the Ottolenghi group in London, and he frames the work in practical terms: “I am very happy to work within Middle Eastern cuisine.” The food sits in that field without narrowing itself to one register; herbs, vegetables and sharp seasoning are handled with enough confidence to carry contrast rather than smooth it away. The NOPI cookbook is a collection of recipes from the restaurant, described as beautiful, bright and bold food that is more challenging for home cooks. That description fits the wider method: visual force, clear flavour, and recipes that expect attention from the cook. He says it directly: “I feel connected to cuisines that have that intensity and places that are sunny, where vegetables really ripen to a huge degree!” In his work, climate, produce and appetite are joined at the same point.

In Their Words “I feel connected to cuisines that have that intensity and places that are sunny, where vegetables really ripen to a huge degree!” “We’ve added flourishes, more color, we’ve kind of modernized it a bit so it was a little bit more accessible to Western cooks.”