Tom Aikens also named Tom Aitkens, is an English Michelin-starred chef. Aikens briefly worked for chefs in London and Paris restaurants. Under his tenure from 1996 to 1999 as head chef and then chef patron, Pied à Terre earned its two Michelin stars in January 1997.
Aikens’s current restaurants include Michelin-starred London restaurant Muse, which opened in January 2020, and three hotel eateries in Abu Dhabi. He appeared on television, including Great British Menu as one of its contestants and then one of its veteran chef judges.
On 2 November 2006, Aikens opened a newer restaurant Tom’s Kitchen, which occupied a former site of a defunct pub The Blenheim, located at Cale Street near Aikens’s other eponymous restaurant.
Aikens won the Newcomer of the Year at the 2004 Catey Awards for his newly established eponymous restaurant. Among the top 100 most influential figures of the UK hospitality industry, The Caterer ranked Aikens 71st in 2005, 97th in 2006, 94th in 2010, and 89th in 2011.
Tom Aikens Age
He is 52 years, born in 1970.
Tom Aikens Restaurant
On 2 November 2006, Aikens opened a newer restaurant Tom’s Kitchen, which occupied a former site of a defunct pub The Blenheim, located at Cale Street near Aikens’s other eponymous restaurant.
In contrast to Aikens’s first eponymous restaurant, Tom’s Kitchen was not a fine dining restaurant but rather a gastropub. Ollie Couillaud, the previous head chef of a Chiswick restaurant La Trompette, co-owned by Nigel Platts-Martin and Bruce Poole, held the a role of head chef from the opening to May 2007.
Aikens and his eponymous restaurant group, Tom Aikens Group, opened another iteration at Westferry Circus of Canary Wharf on 29 June 2013 and then the Mailbox Birmingham iteration in December 2016.
Aikens closed the Birmingham and Canary Wharf iterations on 30 May 2019. He closed the Chelsea location on 2 January 2020, citing “extremely challenging market conditions [and] staff and skills shortages”. To this date, there have been no iterations remaining.
Tom Aikens British Menu
In the sixth series of Great British Menu, Aikens lost to Tom Kerridge in the judging round of the London and South East heat.
In its eighth series, alongside four other winning chefs (Aiden Byrne, Michael Smith, Daniel Clifford, and Richard Davies), Aikens served his winning dish (Chicken egg, egg chicken) as the starter course of the 2013 Comic Relief banquet at the Royal Albert Hall.
He later reappeared in the series as a veteran chef judge for regional heats. He also competed in the seven-episode 2020 Christmas special of the series.
Tom Aikens TV Shows
Aikens and his first eponymous restaurant appeared in the 25 March 2004 episode of a BBC series Trouble at the Top.
He also appeared in Saturday Kitchen (first on 18 November 2006) and then Iron Chef UK in late April 2010, competing against Judy Joo, Sanjay Dwivedi, and Martin Blunos.
Tom Aikens’s Cooking Style
He had a real gastronomic cooking style – very flavoursome and rich food with heavy sauces.
He was all about building flavour and not so much what the food looked like. He was also pretty loud and shouty in the kitchen.