Toby Leigh’s roots in cooking go back a long way, one of his ancestors was a French chef at the battle of Waterloo who came to England with the Estahazy family.
Toby started as a comis at Kensington Place 12 years ago, before moving on to work for Alistair Little at his Notting Hill restaurant. He continued to take inspiration from that time, changing the menu twice daily, cooking bread ’in house’ and insisting on the local seasonal produce beloved by the first wave of modern British chefs.
Toby gained experience later in his training in a number of top restaurants, two of the most memorable being the Anchor and Hope in Waterloo, where slow cooked food was shared by all the table, and later at the Hinds Head where he glimpsed the precision of Heston Blumenthal’s revolutionary style at first hand.
And whilst he does enjoy cooking meat and game, the heart of the menu at Age & Sons is the fish from the English Channel. Toby utilises the fabulous connection to the sea in Ramsgate, which has been a fishing port since Roman times, and in spite of the difficulties caused by the European fishing policy, there is stll a wide selection of fish caught locally. There aren’t many restaurants in Britain that are able to say that the fish on the menu at lunch was still swimming at breakfast.
Toby’s education at a vegetarian boarding school ensures that he is sensitive to the tastes of vegetarians and vegans.
