A top chef whose oven is held together by duct tape is aiming to crowdfund money for a new kitchen for his acclaimed Cardiff restaurant.
Lee Skeet, is the chef behind Cora , a Pontcanna restaurant with just 12 seats that opened in January 2022 following a sell-out run of pop-ups and supper clubs at his flat in Cardiff Bay.
Read more: The 50 best restaurants in Cardiff in 2022
His cooking has been met with rave reviews and Wales star Aaron Ramsay even hired his entire restaurant as a romantic Valentine’s Day gesture.
Lee trained under Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing and was also head chef at the Michelin-starred Hedone in London before his cooking career came to a halt for four years when he was the victim of a hit and run accident.
Whilst Lee is used to working in some of the UK’s top kitchens, he’s had to make do with the most basic equipment whilst cooking at Cora.
Lee single-handedly cooks his six course tasting using just one hob, hot plate and an oven that’s held together by duct tape.
"Everything is just a bit old and used and not really for a commercial kitchen,” said Lee.
Lee’s oven in particular has been on its last legs since the day he bought it.
“I got the oven brand new for a pop-up restaurant I did a few years ago and the day I bought it my mate smashed the door on it trying to put it in the van before we even used it.
“So ever since then it’s been damaged and then during the 40 Days, 40 Nights pop-up the door just fell off in the middle of service. In the heat of the moment we stuck it back on with duct tape and it’s held ever since. It’s going to fall off again one day but it hasn’t yet!”
As a result, Lee is hoping to raise £25,000 to fund the purchase of new equipment for his kitchen.
"It's literally a pop-up kitchen with domestic appliances so I'm hoping to raise a bit of money to invest in that and hopefully get a bit more and better quality equipment.
So far Lee has raised almost £10,000 funding with just five days left of his crowdfunding campaign. If he doesn’t raise all of the money then he won’t receive anything.
“We’ve worked our a****s off to go from cooking in my living room to an acclaimed restaurant over the last year and this investment would help us immeasurably.
“Everything's been done independently with no backing or investors. And that's the way I want to keep it. I've invested a little bit every week, here and there, and I've put all my money into the dining room. The last little bit left is the kitchen - I've left myself till last.
“So if we could have a little bit of funding to do that it would be amazing. It would let us start really pushing to go to the next level. That's the reason we want to do it. It's just to make the food better.”
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