Profile

Alastair Hendy is an entirely self-taught cook, beginning at the age of six.  He studied Theatre and Costume Design at Central St Martins, London, followed by some time as Display Manager for Habitat Stores.  He then dealt in Twentieth Century furniture and objects from a shop in Marylebone, London.

His full time cookery career began when he became a runner-up in BBC Good Food magazine’s Italian Cook of the Year competition, followed by a brief stint as pudding and salad chef at Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street restaurant, London.  He then started contributing to You magazine, Mail on Sunday and Guardian Weekend, and Waitrose Food Illustrated.  He launched the food pages of Red magazine (and was food editor for the first six issues) and was the Photographic Art Director for Eat it and Creative Director for Live it , Sir Terence Conran’s food and lifestyle magazines, and was food editor of Livingetc (until November 2000).

Alastair was the food and cookery writer for The Sunday Times 1999 - 2002.

Biography

Chef, Journalist, Writer, Editor, Photographer, Style guru, Radio and TV presenter, Teacher, Consultant, Creative director and Designer

Recent Awards

2005

Voted World Best Food Journalist at the World Food Media Awards, Australia
 
Voted World Best Food Photographer at the World Food Media Awards, Australia

Awarded Best Designed Cookbook Award UK by Grand Gourmet for Food & Travels: Asia, designed, photographed and written by Alastair Hendy

Shorlisted for Best Hard Cover Cookery Book for two books at the World Food Media Awards, Australia:
Home Cook, published by Headline
Food & Travels: Asia, published by Mitchel Beazley

Shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers Awards: Food Journalist Award for work in Conde Nast Traveler and Sainsbury’s magazine

Shortlisted for the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards: Photography in Food and Travels: Asia

2003

Voted World Best Food Journalist at the World Food Media Awards October, Australia.
 
Voted World Best Food Photographer at the World Food Media Awards, Australia.
 
Shortlisted for two Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards: Magazine Cookery Writer for work in Food and Travel, and for Visual Work for photography featured in Food and Travel.

Shortlisted for two Guild of Food Writers Awards: the Michael Smith Award for articles published on British food, and for Cookery Journalist, for work in the Sunday Times.

Background

Alastair Hendy is an entirely self-taught cook, beginning at the age of six. He studied Theatre and Costume Design at Central St Martins, London, followed by some time as Display Manager for Habitat Stores.  He then dealt in Twentieth Century furniture and objects from a shop in Marylebone, London.
 
His full time cookery career began when he became a runner-up in BBC Good Food magazine’s Italian Cook of the Year competition, followed by a brief stint as pudding and salad chef at Antonio Carluccio’s Neal Street restaurant, London.  He then started contributing to You magazine, Mail on Sunday and Guardian Weekend, and Waitrose Food Illustrated.  He launched the food pages of Red magazine (and was food editor for the first six issues) and was the Photographic Art Director for Eat it and Creative Director for Live it , Sir Terence Conran’s food and lifestyle magazines, and was food editor of Livingetc (until November 2000).
 
Alastair was the food and cookery writer for The Sunday Times 1999 - 2002.  
 
Current work

He is Contributing Food Editor to Australia’s Vogue Entertaining and Travel magazine.  He also regularly contributes recipe, food and travel writing, and photography to The Mail On Sunday You Magazine, Olive, BBC Good Food, and Sainsbury’s The Magazine. Abroad he contributes regularly to Martha Stewart Living, Italian Marie Claire and De La Republica newspaper supplement, German Vogue and Myself, Belgian Feeling magazine, Taste, South Africa and Marie Claire Australia.  Alastair is also an inveterate traveller, spending much of his time in India, South-east Asia, Europe, the Middle East, USA and Central America, all of which have influenced his eclectic cooking style.  
 
Books

He has written a series of four books on seasonal cooking, Fresh in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, published by Ryland, Peters and Small; Cooking for Friends, published by RPS; and Mushrooms, also published by RPS.  In March 2004 Headline published his best-seller Home Cook, which has become a classic - a bible for all the things we love to cook and eat at home.  His latest book is Food & Travels Asia published by Mitchell Beazley, which he also designed and photographed, was listed no. 5 in the Independent’s top 10 summer cookbooks July 2007. Both Home Cook and Asia were in the September 2008 Independent’s  ‘50 Best Cookbooks in publication’, Alastair being the only author to have two books listed.

TV, Radio and Teaching

He is also a TV cook, and presented a 20 programme series on cooking without meat, titled No Meat Required, which was screened on cable, digital and satellite networks. He is regularly asked to do food related radio interviews and cooking demonstrations, and also lectures on all food related writing and publishing - recipe, food and travel writing, styling and photography - most recently co-tutoring a one week residential Arvon Foundation writing course with Sophie Grigson (July 2007), and is booked to repeat the course in July 2009.

Photography

He is also a photographer - his work appears regularly in Australian Vogue Entertaining and Travel magazine, The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine, Olive magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Conde Nast Traveller, Marie Claires and many other food related publications, including Antonio Carluccio’s more recent cookery books.  
 
Commercial work

He is a style/prediction consultant for Carluccio’s Deli Cafes, a food and trend consultant for Marks & Spencer, and he recently photographed all of Tesco’s in-store fruit, vegetable and bakery signage, and all of M&S’ new range Indian ready-made meal packaging. He has also writes/consults for Ocean Spray and Total Greek yoghurt.
 
Interior Design

He is also a designer, and lives in a converted warehouse space in Shoreditch, London, designed by himself, which has been featured in various programmes on BBC television and in many books, newspaper supplements and magazines throughout the world.  His current interiors project is the renovation of a Grade ll Listed Tudor house in Hastings old town, East Sussex, from which he will be running a monthly weekend live-in fish cookery school.  In summer 2009 he will also be opening his own home wares shop at 36 High St, Hastings old town.
 
Specific areas of expertise:

Food and travel – including photography
Teaching – food writing and publishing
Southeast Asia
Herbs and spices
Home cooking
Outdoor cooking
Seasonality
Food and style trends
Creative direction (on magazines and brands)

Styling, Designing, Interior and Kitchen Design

Audience comments:

Home Cook

‘The book is brilliant. All my kind of food’  Delia Smith

‘Absolutely wonderful’ Nigel Slater

‘As good a read as it is for the recipes, for while singing an ode to the iceberg lettuce in his “mum’s big teakwood salad bowl”, Alastair describes lollo rosso as “the most misguided, pappy, frothy, tasteless big-girl’s blouse of whoring low-life, the most wish-washy pile of leaves ever created”. Saccharine sweet he is not’ Time Out, Rupa Gulati.

‘Don't go into the Kitchen without it! I got this book a couple of years ago and I have to say its by far the best cook book I have ever read. Its full to bursting with down to earth and delicious recipes for all occasions. I've cooked his Xmas Lunch for a group of friends and it went down a storm.  This book is a wonderful addition to a collection, and good enough to be your only cook book’. Posted on Amazon.co.uk by D. J. Clarke (London, UK)12 Dec 2007

‘I regularly think, “Oh yes, that’s exactly want I want to cook” ’ Barbara Grierson - reader of Alastair’s Sunday Times column

Food and Travels: Asia

‘This gritty yet beautiful book recording his expeditions through Asia makes you wish you were travelling beside him’ The Independent

‘I’m a great fan of his work, both the recipes and the fantastic photography’   Delia Smith

General

‘Thank you so much for yesterday, I am still overwhelmed by the beauty of everything we saw. Thank you also for the brilliant lunch.’ Delia Smith, on presentation of new magazine layout ideas by Alastair for Sainsbury’s magazine

‘We were a darn good team, weren’t we?  I had such a good time and likewise really enjoyed working with you’ Sophie Grigson, after co-tutoring Arvon Foundation Food Writing course with Alastair.

‘Bearing in mind that a word doesn’t exist to describe what he does, and in a publishing world that prefers its talent to have one definable skill, Alastair Hendy the writer-cum-cook-cum-stylist-cum-photographer is a puzzle.  He is a human magazine.  Not everyone gets him but I have always considered him the most forward-looking stylist in the UK’  Neale Whitaker, editor and author of The Accidental Foodie

‘The total transition to a sophisticated urban living space is a tribute to Alastair Hendy’s vision and one of London’s most talked about apartments’ Belle magazine, Australia, on Alastair’s home.

Updated 02/03/2009