Jason Atherton

Jason Atherton (born 6 September 1971) is an English chef and restaurateur. His restaurant Pollen Street Social gained a Michelin Star in 2011, its opening year. He was the Executive Chef at Gordon Ramsay's Michelin starred Maze in London until 30 April 2010. In 2014 he co-hosted the Sky Living TV series My Kitchen Rules.

Early life and education

Atherton was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

The son of a Skegness hotelier and her joiner husband, Atherton ran away to London at the age of 16 while his parents were on holiday. After training at Boston College, Lincolnshire, he spent six weeks training with the Army Catering Corps, which he hated.

Career

Jason Atherton has worked with chefs including Pierre Koffmann, Nico Ladenis, and Marco Pierre White. He joined the Gordon Ramsay Group in 2001 as the executive chef for Verre in Dubai. In 2005, Jason returned to the UK and opened Maze.

In November 2007, Atherton and Gordon Ramsay oversaw the launch of Maze in the Hilton Prague Old Town. April 2008 saw the launch of Maze Grill, which sits alongside maze in Grosvenor Square. In 2009 Atherton opened Maze in Cape Town at the One and Only Hotel and also maze restaurants in Melbourne and Qatar.

Pollen Street Social

Pollen Street Social is a restaurant in London, England, run by chef Jason Atherton. It was Atherton's first UK solo restaurant, and was named the best new UK restaurant by the Good Food Guide, and the best new fine-dining restaurant in London by Time Out. It currently holds one Michelin star, which it gained within a year of opening. Elements in the restaurant such as the dessert bar have been subsequently included in Atherton's other restaurants. It has a current rating of 3 out of 5 for food hygiene on the Scores on the Doors website up from 2 based on a review on 30 March 2015.

Description

Chef Jason Atherton had previously worked for Gordon Ramsay for ten years before opening his first restaurant, Table No. 1 in Shanghai. In 2011, he opened his first UK based restaurant, Pollen Street Social, which became his flagship location. The name came from the location of the restaurant, and Atherton described the "social" name saying, "I spend quite a lot of time in New York, and places like Stanton Social are popping up; and it's based around people being able to use a fine-dining restaurant for anything they want, not just for the food, but for the atmosphere, for the Champagne, for the private areas, for the bar. So it's a social place." It was funded by twenty years of Atherton's savings, as well as several minor investors in addition to a single private investor who owns 25%. He was relieved that there was a reasonable gap after the opening of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, due to the buzz caused by Blumenthal's restaurant. The restaurant is located at 8-10 Pollen Street, London, where previously a Pitcher & Piano public house was located. Prior to opening the restaurant, he opened a pop-up restaurant for two days in October 2010 to preview the menu to be served at Pollen Street Social.

Atherton

Atherton may refer to:

Places

Association football

Other uses

Jason

Jason (/ˈdʒeɪsən/; Greek: Ἰάσων Iásōn) was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was famous for his role as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. Because he belongs to mythology, he may have existed before the Greek Dark Ages (1100–800 BC.) The people who wrote about Jason lived around 300 BC.

Jason appeared in various literary works in the classical world of Greece and Rome, including the epic poem Argonautica and the tragedy Medea. In the modern world, Jason has emerged as a character in various adaptations of his myths, such as the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts and the 2000 TV miniseries of the same name. Jason is also the main character in the British TV series Atlantis.

Jason has connections outside the classical world, being the mythical founder of the city of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

Early years

Family

Jason's father is invariably Aeson, but there is great variation as to his mother's name. According to various authors, she could be:

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a Scottish-born British chef and restaurateur. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total and currently hold 9. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held 3 Michelin stars since 2001. Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, MasterChef, MasterChef Junior and Hotel Hell. In 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $60 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 21st highest earning celebrity in the world.

Early life

Ramsay was born on 8 November 1966 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. From the age of five, he was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. Ramsay is the second of four children. He has an older sister, Diane; a younger brother, Ronnie, who Ramsay revealed had been behind bars for heroin possession as a juvenile; and a younger sister, Yvonne. Ramsay's father, Gordon James Senior (died 1997), was – at various times – a swimming pool manager, a welder, and a shopkeeper; his sister Yvonne and their mother, Helen (maiden name: Cosgrove), have been nurses.