Fine dining restaurants open every day in London, but restaurants that are actively trying to make the world a better place? We could do with a few more of those up the road.
Most chefs who open a tasting menu restaurant might have their eyes on a Michelin star, and perhaps want to turn a decent profit at the end of the day, but Adam Simmonds has his heart set on a more altruistic goal.
The Michelin-starred chef has just helped to launch Home Kitchen, a fine dining destination in Primrose Hill staffed almost entirely by homeless people. It’s a humble restaurant with a big heart, brought together by a legion of charities, chefs, private organisations and social enterprises to make a real difference in the world through the medium of food.
The aim of the project is to put an end to homelessness, while also tackling the long-standing issue of rising job vacancies within the hospitality industry. Obviously, the food is important - it serves both an a la carte and tasting menu using seasonal, high-quality produce – but at its core Home Kitchen is an idea built around the people that run it.
‘It's the biggest challenge of my career’, says Adam. To put that into context, this is a man who’s spent decades working at some of the UK’s best and most prestigious restaurants, cutting his teeth at the likes of The Ritz, Le Gavroche, and Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir, before going on to win Michelin stars himself at multiple restaurants, first at Ynyshir in Wales and later at his eponymous restaurant Adam Simmonds at Danesfield House.
But turning Home Kitchen from an idea into a real, functioning concept has been as challenging as it looks on paper. Unlike other restaurants, Home Kitchen deals with issues far beyond having to pay the bills every month. There’s a constant risk that any of its employees could end up sleeping without a roof over their head. ‘Even in this process, we've had one of the guys made homeless so he can't turn in’, explains Adam. ‘At any given time, we could be short-staffed, and we have to react to that.’
There's a support system in place to ensure issues like those are dealt with swiftly. Each member of staff employed by the project has an individual caseworker who works to find them accommodation as quickly as possible should that sitation arise, but it just goes to show the daily challenges that come with running a business like this.
![Interiors at Home Kitchen]()
Naturally, a lack of stability is going to have a knock-on effect on working life in the kitchen. ‘When they're under that pressure of not having somewhere [to live], or sleeping on the kitchen floor, which I know one of them has done, they don't get a good night's sleep, and it's this vicious cycle that people get into.’
Beyond that, there’s the technical element of training a team of people who not only haven’t worked in the industry before, but have never cooked a proper meal. It’s part of what makes the whole project so incredible.
The 16-strong team have undergone three weeks of intensive training to equip them with an all-round understanding of what it’s like to work in a restaurant. They’ve also been learning the ropes under Adams’ tutelage at his other day job, The Megaro Hotel opposite St Pancras Station where he’s executive chef, and going forward they’ll be given the opportunity to continue their education at Westminster Kingsway College to grasp pro culinary skills. But to say their training has been brief is an understatement.
It’s a mammoth challenge, and there’s clearly some sort of ulterior motive at play for Adam to take on a project like this. In fact, it’s only in the last few years, since Covid, that the chef has turned his attention from Michelin kitchens to socially conscious work. It all started while he was working at Soup Kitchen London in 2020, helping its co-founder Alex Brown feed over a hundred people a day, when he had the idea to help the homeless by giving them a platform in the hospitality industry.
But the project hits home on a deeper level. The chef has spoken openly about his struggles with addiction and mental health while working in professional kitchens over the years, and he’s acutely aware of how lucky he was to receive the help that he did. If someone hadn’t been there for him in his hour of need, his life could have taken a very different trajectory.
‘I was an addict - I was rock bottom for a number of years. The next stage for me would have been on the streets'.
‘I was an addict - I was rock bottom for a number of years. I haven't been homeless, but I had no money to pay rent, nothing. The next stage for me would have been on the streets if I hadn't had my family. It's a project that's very close to my heart. It chokes me even today because of what this stands for.’
Now, he’s an ambassador for The Burnt Chef Project, an organisation that offers mental health support and education for the hospitality industry, where he regularly speaks freely about his own experiences of addiction and burnout to help both employers and employees navigate mental health issues in the workplace.
So Home Kitchen is a passion project on many levels, and there’s nothing like deep-rooted compassion to keep you motivated when the going gets tough. Adam is quick to highlight that as challenging as launching Home Kitchen has been, the rewards far outweigh the hurdles.
‘It's going to take time, and this is a journey for them and for us. When we signed up for this, we knew that would be the case, but that’s ok’, Adam explains.
![Plating up a dish]()
When it comes to the food, for example, it quickly became clear that he couldn’t implement exactly what he had envisioned because of the huge skill factor involved, so he took things back to basics. ‘For me it’s about getting a consistent product that's cooked properly and dressed to a certain standard, and then we go through there.’
He adds: ‘There are commis chefs who come out of catering college wet behind the ears and still need years of work. It takes years. We are dealing with a very different group of people and we need to be mindful of that.’
There are a few creases to iron out, but Adam’s sights are set high. Awards? Definitely. A Michelin star? Well, that remains to be seen. His ultimate goal though, is for Home Kitchen to be rolled out across the country so the project can help as many people as possible.
‘It's not about us, it’s about the platform we're going to give to so many people. That's the most important thing. It’s for them.’
Catch-up on our latest interviews as part of our Female Chef 2024 series, including with Adejoke Bakare of Chishuru, Harriet Mansell of Lilac and April Lily Partridge of The Ledbury.