Gary Rhodes: The acclaimed celebrity chef who reinvigorated British cuisine

Olivia Petter remembers the award-winning restaurateur who presented several TV programmes and cooked for Princess Diana

When it comes to accomplished celebrity chefs, few could compare to Gary Rhodes. The British restaurateur, who died in Dubai on Tuesday aged 59, was best known for his TV work, having hosted countless programmes including MasterChef and Hell’s Kitchen. But during the course of his impressive career, Rhodes also authored many cookery books, launched several Michelin-star restaurants and was honoured with an OBE for his services to the hospitality industry.

News of Rhodes’ passing was announced via a statement from his family on Wednesday. “The Rhodes family are deeply saddened to announce the passing of beloved husband, father and brother, Gary Rhodes OBE,” it read, noting that Rhodes passed away with his wife, Jennie, by his side. The couple had two sons together. “The family would like to thank everyone for their support and ask for privacy during this time,” the statement concluded.

Rhodes met Jennie at Thanet Technical College in Ramsgate, Kent, where he trained for three years. After realising that he would need to work abroad in order to fully develop his cooking skills, Rhodes moved to the Netherlands where he worked at the Amsterdam Hilton as a junior chef, his first professional role. But shortly after he started, the then-19-year-old Rhodes was involved in a traffic accident that left him with severe injuries. Recalling the incident in a 2001 interview with the Daily Mail, Rhodes explained he suffered from a blood clot on his brain and had to undergo major surgery.

“I ran for a tram and looked the wrong way,” he said. “I wasn’t used to the trams in the middle of the road, or cars travelling in the wrong direction, and a van hit me. I woke up in hospital about a week later.” Following the surgery, Rhodes lost his sense of smell and was unable to work for six months.​ Fortunately, he made a full recovery and went on to tour Europe to take on various cooking jobs before settling as sous chef at the Reform Club in Pall Mall, London.

Following a two-year stint at the Michelin-starred Capital Hotel in Knightsbridge, where he worked under acclaimed chef Brian Turner, Rhodes landed his first head chef role at the Whitehall in Essex. Within the year, he was recruited to run The Castle Hotel in Taunton, Somerset. Rhodes was able to maintain the hotel’s Michelin star, making him one of the youngest chefs to boast such an accolade, at 26 years old.

It was at the Castle where Rhodes established his reputation for taking modern British dishes, such as fishcakes and bread-and-butter pudding, and reimagining them in innovative and contemporary ways. Following news of his death, many fans and celebrities shared some of their favourite Rhodes recipes online, with Great British Bake Off winner Candace Brown tweeting: “His banana and syrup loaf was the first thing I baked all on my own. The pages are stuck together with syrup.”

Chef Damian Wawrzyniak tells The Independent how Rhodes’ flair for taking humble classics and turning them into delicacies completely revolutionised British cooking. “There are so many great British ingredients available on our doorstep and we are flooded with foods from all over the world; but Gary also noticed that faggots could be served in a way so Michelin would notice the real flavour and cooking technique behind them. He was one of the very few culinary legends.”

Rhodes’ career continued to flourish and by 1996, he was awarded a Michelin star for The Greenhouse in Mayfair, where he was head chef at the time. He went on to open two other Michelin-star restaurants under his own name, City Rhodes and Rhodes in the Square. By 1999, he had opened three Rhodes & Co brasseries in Manchester, Edinburgh and West Sussex. Rhodes soon opened three restaurants in London, two of which were awarded Michelin stars within their first few years of business. Restaurants aboard P&O superliners soon followed alongside a brasserie in Dublin and a restaurant in Dorset.

Eager to take his career overseas, Rhodes opened a restaurant on the Caribbean island of Granada in 2004 that was located inside the five star Calabash Hotel. Three years later, he opened his first restaurant in Dubai, Rhodes Mezzanine, which was located at The Grosvenor House Hotel and was awarded Restaurant of the Year at the Dubai Time Out Awards in 2010. A second restaurant in Dubai followed, Rhodes Twenty10, prompting Rhodes and his family to move there permanently. In 2013, Rhodes opened his first restaurant in Abu Dhabi.

Rhodes was almost as famed for his restaurants as he was for his trademark spiky hair, which several people have referenced in their tributes to the late chef, including leading pastry chef Will Torrent, who tells The Independent that it was one of the many things that struck him about Rhodes. “He was a real culinary hero of mine,” he says. “I met Gary a number of times as a patron of the University of West London whilst I was studying there and have worked with his dessert company Rhokett alongside Waitrose for nearly nine years. He was always so willing to answer questions, spend time with you and still inspire you through his passion for food. He will be missed by our industry and beyond.”

He was the first to make cookery the new rock’n’roll and will always remain a true icon for all of us

Ainsley Harriott

In addition to his achievements as a restaurateur, Rhodes authored more than 20 cookery books and fronted several food programmes, the first of which was Hot Chefs, which he did aged 27. Preceding the likes of Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, Rhodes was one of the first TV chefs and went on to host MasterChef USA, Masterchef UK and Hell’s Kitchen. “When I first started on TV, I think I was the very first professional chef to have his first full BBC series,” Rhodes said in an interview earlier this year. “Today, I suppose I have a little bit of pride watching chefs on TV – the reason for that, many of them worked for me.”

Rhodes also fronted several TV series in his own name, including Rhodes Across China and Rhodes Around Britain, and made regular appearances on programmes including Ready Steady Cook and Loose Women. He was famed for his charm, energy and passion for cooking, all of which translated brilliantly on TV. Regula Ysewijn, food writer and photographer, recalls watching Rhodes as a teenager in Belgium in the 1990s, describing him as a “breath of fresh air”. “He had a bright personality and a flair for cooking that we had never seen on Belgian TV screens,” she tells The Independent. “Rhodes made us want to cook, taste and experience food in a way we didn’t know we could.”

British chef and TV presenter Ainsley Harriott describes Rhodes as an “inspiration to a generation of chefs”. “Like him, they learned their trade in professional kitchens and went on to share their passion and skill through television, books and live appearances,” Harriott tells The Independent. “He was the first to make cookery the new rock’n’roll and will always remain a true icon for all of us.”

Richard Vines, chief food critic at Bloomberg, adds that Rhodes was also excellent company and remained humble despite his success and celebrity status. “He was such a likeable and easy-going person, it’s possible to forget just how influential he was in the renaissance of British cooking,” Vines tells The Independent. “He wasn’t starry or self-centred or earnest. He was fun to hang out with and everyone will miss him.”