TV chef and restaurateur Russell Norman reportedly left his estranged wife Jules £1.4million in his will.
Norman, best known for founding the Polpo restaurant chain and spin-offs Spuntino and Polpetto, left the substantial sum to his family, including his three children—Ollie, Martha, and Mabel—after his death aged 57 last November.
The will, signed in 2013, stipulated that the estate go to Jules, whom he married in 2004 but later separated from. It included £1,437,000 in assets, covering both business and personal items, according to reports.
According to The Sun, Norman also wished to be cremated and wanted his former partner to take over his shares in his businesses.
Norman mentored aspiring chefs on TV and was credited with popularising the small plates concept and reintroducing the classic Negroni. After rising to fame on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, he published three successful cookbooks. His first, simply titled Polpo, sold 250,000 copies and won the Waterstones Book of the Year prize.
He also presented a six-part documentary for BBC2 in 2014 called The Restaurant Man.
The Hounslow-born restaurateur, lauded as the “new king of Soho dining”, was rushed unconscious to hospital following an argument with his girlfriend in November 2023. He died five days later and an inquest in February heard Norman's death was a suicide by hanging. His inquest heard he had been displaying "suicidal tendencies" before his death.
In a statement read by Coroner Katrina Hepburn, Norman’s girlfriend Dr Genevieve Verdigel, an art historian, told how she discovered him lying unconscious in the garden.
She said: "I ran back inside to call 999. I was trying to do CPR. I was screaming and the people next door came round."
