Tom Cockerill
Chef
https://www.woodrowstudios.co.ukTom started cooking in the late 90s at Hambleton Hall in Rutland. Shortly afterwards he opened two restaurants in Leicester, quickly establishing himself as one of the region’s top chefs, with accolades including "Best Newcomer" and “Midland’s Restaurant of the Year" from The Good Food Guide.
In parallel to running his restaurants Tom broadened his food knowledge with postgraduate study of Food Science at the University of Nottingham and internships at world renowned kitchens including The Fat Duck, Per Se, Gordon Ramsay and WD-50. Leicester had little previous reputation for high-end gastronomy, leading Tony Naylor to note in The Guardian that “such outreach workers to the culinary impoverished definitely deserve any plaudits coming their way”. Terry Durack, writing for the Observer, remarked “Leicester finally has a restaurant that can mix it with the big boys.”
After 15 years Tom sold his restaurant business and now divides his time between working as a food creative (giving culinary consultancy on TV series including Amazon’s dystopian chiller ‘The Feed’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’), recipe development and food styling for national food brands, and bringing up his four children. From his artist studio in Leicester he also creates photography surfaces which have featured in cookbooks from chefs including Nathan Outlaw, Niklas Ekstedt and Tom Kitchin.
