About Ollie

At the tender age of 31 Ollie’s career has already spanned 16 years, his appetite for cooking began from a very early age.  Influenced by summers spent out in France searching the local markets with his grandmother for the ripest and juiciest tomatoes to make the perfect tomato tart, to working alongside his mother and aunty in their well established bistro restaurant.

At 16 Ollie started his formal training under Master Chef of Great Britain Lez Brooks an ex-royal head chef, who enrolled him in the local catering college to start an apprenticeship and several NVQ’s.  After a year Ollie moved on to work with michelin stared chef Peter Gorton, which then helped him into his next job at Combe House, an award winning country house hotel in the South West of England. He spent the next three years mastering all sections of the kitchen under Master Chef of Great Britain Philip Leach.

Ollie went onto complete two stage’s at a 3AA rosette and a two star michelin restaurant, before heading back home for what should have been two months but ended up being 18 to help his mother and aunty expand their restaurant. Ollie’s passion for traveling soon hit and he spent the next year traveling around the world and spent some time working in Australia discovering new flavours and foods.

Returning back to Devon, Ollie accepted his first head chef role, a newly refurbished gastro pub in the village where he grew up.  With an emphasis on creating menus using local produce he went on to win the awards: Les Routiers best dining pub of the year 2005, regional winners in the good pub guide 2005, high-achieving AA Rosette restaurant and one of ‘The Times’ top 50 gastro pubs in UK 2006.

In late 2006 Ollie took his cooking to the seas, in hunger for more travel and discovering new flavours, Ollie started his career on superyachts. In December 2006 Ollie was runner up at the prestigous Antigua Charter Boat show ‘concours de chef’ competition.

For the past 4 1/2 years Ollie has been working on yachts and private chefing and in his spare time help to the charity Fresh2o. Ollie is competent in all areas, having trained in French, meditteranean, new world cuisine and has completed sushi courses and is confident to take on new challenges and meet any guests requests.