Rock star chefs, eh? It’s possible to grow your own: take a carton of tattoos, a pinch of talent and more than a few shavings of sheer bloody-mindedness and that’s most of the way to a maverick. Throw in a reputation for sullenness, garnish with an enormous watch, serve in a Rolls-Royce (currently preferred colour: Essex orange) et voilà: Tom Sellers, the man who called his bulldog Boss.
Sellers has long been known for such calling cards. In fact, all that’s required for a profile of the man is to mention these things with a few lines about falling out with critics and a bit on some celebrity pals (“Which one?” he says with a rare grin, when asked how you get to know the heavyweight champion of the world), bandy about “bad boy” and “rebel”, snap him with his fingers webbed in a style akin to Mr Burns-does-Masterchef, and you’re done.
The only hiccup here is that, well, celeb pals aside, these days not much of it rings true — if it ever did. There are the basic facts: a lively teenager, he was arrested — he admits it but won’t say for what — went into kitchens at 16 under Tom Aikens, flew off after two years to Thomas Keller’s three-starred New York outpost Per Se, and then, by invitation, ended up with René Redzepi, the Danish chef whose restaurant Noma has often been hailed as the best in the world.
After that came Sellers’s own Restaurant Story (“whatever you think of me, I said I was going to do it and I did it”), with its famous beef fat candle, a slew of slavering, adoring, astonished reviews, and five months later his first Michelin star. And then all the muttering started, the whisperings of a decidedly bullish, angry young man, the cocky cook. And so too that poisoned chalice, the “rock star” tag, which seems a little off the mark for a man whose drinking is mostly confined to Sunday afternoons in the pub with his pup, and who says he’s never taken drugs. There hasn’t really been much time for mischief, given until a couple of years ago he was still on a 115-hour working week.
I think I get disappointed when people want to focus more on the image than what I’ve achieved over the last 10 years
Now, as he refurbishes his flagship 10 years after opening, and opens two new restaurants — Story Cellar, launched last Saturday, and Dovetale, set for the summer — does the 36-year-old Sellers think he’s had a fair time of it? “I’d like to think that when people, like, spend even 10 minutes with me, they realise that I’m not what has tried to be perceived of me. It’s like, you know, there is more substance,” he says. “I don’t think I ever was [the angry young man]. And hearing all the criticism, it’s a lot to take mentally and physically. It can be wearing on you as a human.”
Does it matter very much to him what people think? “Quite frankly, what people want to see from the outside looking in, I don’t give two f****, to be honest. And that’s on the record.” Ah, perhaps the bullish part isn’t so far off the mark.
Still, frustration is understandable. “I think I just get disappointed when people want to focus more on that stuff than potentially what I’ve achieved over the last 10 years as a chef and, you know, as someone that’s worked extremely hard what I do.” He has a point; keeping a fine-dining restaurant going for a decade is an achievement in itself, let alone one with five AA rosettes (only 15 other places across the UK can claim the same accolade), and two Michelin stars.
That last achievement was, granted, a slow burn. When the first came, Sellers was hailed as the leading talent of his generation, the hottest s*** in town, even if he can’t recall much about life back then. “Honestly, the first kind of two years of Story, I don’t remember much,” he says, somewhat alarmingly. Why? “I think purely the hours I was working, the tunnel vision I had, it was all kind of blurry.” He does vaguely recall winning the star, though: “I was sitting on a park bench waiting, refreshing Twitter. I think I felt a sense of relief, probably because I was like: ‘how am I gonna feel mentally if I don’t get it?’ And then I spent every day after that trying to achieve the next one.”
So, er, why the wait? Was it frustrating? His voice pitches up: “Yup, yes.” Hegoes quiet. “Look, I’m my own worst critic and I self-internalise. I’ve never looked for excuses, never have, never will.”
Bravado is still there, then, but so too is a nerve-wracked humility. “I think maybe there was a period of time where I lacked passion and I lacked intention.” He looks up. “And I allowed other influences to either stagnate my work or influence it in the wrong way. When I realigned myself, I realised and remembered why I started all them years ago, and probably fell back in love with being a chef and the restaurateur again. I don’t think it was a coincidence that [the second star] followed soon after that.”
He credits the pandemic as being his time to reset and reanalyse — “I think it was good for me to have some basically enforced time to stop… I don’t really take holidays” — even if it was hardly a walk in the park. “There were some big moments through that period,” he says, matter-of-factly. “I broke up with my partner and my mum had a double heart attack. My business was closed.”
Still, Sellers says, not having a 16-hour work day let him re-evaluate. And after 10 years dedicated solely in London to Restaurant Story — with the exception of two summers consulting at critically lacerated Ours in Kensington (“I still have and always have had a huge amount of respect for Fay [Maschler],” he says of the former Evening Standard critic who did the lacerating) — that meant the chance to try something new: “We’ve made a conscious decision that we wanted to look at other things.”
The first is the overhaul of Restaurant Story, presently under way (the chef says it will emerge as “Story 3.0”); the second is the cosy Story Cellar, open now in Neal’s Yard, which centres on an open kitchen, and is all white tiles and dark blues. “This kind of counter dining, doing rotisserie, this Parisian influence, it’s something that I really love,” he says. That Parisian influence is pretty muted with the food — don’t expect escargot, the menu’s stars are rotisserie chicken and steak — but the big thing is the wine cellar of the restaurant’s name. Nearby Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels may worry: Sellers’s cellar reportedly is stocked with a number of rare, coveted vintages, with glasses alone selling in the hundreds (as well for as about a tenner). Both it and the Story refresh are uncompromisingly his own: “It’s self-funded by essentially working capital which, you know, it’s quite an achievement. We feel really empowered by that and I think and we should.”
This “we” comes up often, which seems to mark a change for the famously single-minded chef. “I got to point when I realised that, you know, I needed a great group of people around me and a great team to continue to grow and be able to look at other things,” he acknowledges. “It’s never been all me but sadly, my team don’t, you know, they don’t sell newspapers, right? But I have an amazing group around me.” He also credits his team — and the responsibility he feels towards them, both personally and financially — as one of the primary reasons he’s stuck in the restaurant business, even when he’s felt “people seem to forget there’s a human, a person at the end of all this”.
“There’s many times when I’ve wanted to throw in the towel but something always dragged me back,” he says. The other people he credits with his longevity? His mum and dad. “I’ve always wanted to make them proud.”
This year’s third project is a contract to look after the restaurant at summer opening 1 Hotel Mayfair, called Dovetale, which he says will show that a “modern British European grill-style restaurant can be progressive”.
There were some big moments during lockdown. I broke up with my partner, my mum had a heart attack
The conversation has been six years in the making, he adds. Why now? “I just felt that it was an opportunity that we couldn’t not take seriously,” he shrugs. How so? “Well, discussions have already been had that this is just the beginning of our relationship across the globe. I think if obviously if Dovetale is a success in London, then I think that we would look together to maybe look at doing that in other parts of the world with them.” He says his “whole creative process” has been “about how we look back to go forward”, and mentions both Scott’s and LPM as long-standing institutions with the kind of timeless appeal that he wants to be. If global domination does follow, each Dovetale will likely adjust for its local market. “10 years ago, my chef ego would have been saying “no, this is what I do wherever I go” kind of thing, whereas now I understand the different demographics.”
Or, to put it another way, you could say Sellers has learnt to play the game. Maybe he’s just settled down. However it lands, Tom Sellers is a chef who barely drinks, doesn’t touch drugs, prides himself on taking his parents out to lunch, and for 10 years has kept a restaurant at the top of its game.
And while bravado bristles close to the surface, you might end up thinking he was a little introspective, perhaps even anxious. You’d certainly say he was a thinker. But a rock star? Forget it.
Story Cellar is open now at 17 Neal’s Yard, WC2H 9DP. For more information, visit storycellar.co.uk
Restaurant Story in its third incarnation will open later this year at 199 Tooley Street, SE1 2JX. For more information, visit restaurantstory.co.uk
Dovetale will open in the summer at 1 Berkeley St, W1J 8NE. For more information, visit 1hotels.com
Correction: An earlier version of this article indicated that for the past decade, Tom Sellers has only been involved with Restaurant Story and Ours. In fact, this is only true in regards to London, and the chef has been involved with other projects outside the capital, including The Lickfold Inn in Petworth (which he no longer has any dealing with). The author is happy to make the clarification.
