In 2002, chef and cookbook author Angela Hartnett was heading the restaurant team at the Connaught hotel in London. When fellow chef Neil Borthwick came to work for her, she was impressed by his skills, as well as his sense of humour. “I was in the meat and fish section,” he says. “I’d previously been working in Scotland but I wanted to train up in London and then go to France.” He soon became good friends with Angela. “She was very pretty and cheeky; we were always laughing,” he says. Although she sensed he “might have a thing for me” they kept things professional. “As well as the fact I was his boss, he was also much younger than me and it wouldn’t have been appropriate,” says Angela.
Four years later, Neil followed his dreams and moved to Valence in France to work for the chef Anne-Sophie Pic at the Maison Pic. He and Angela stayed in touch and continued to meet up several times a year. “We knew a lot of the same people and sometimes a few of us would go to France to visit Neil and try out different restaurants together,” she says. In that time, Angela also opened Murano, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant in Mayfair.
