Latest news with #ThomasStraker
Spectator
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Lunch with Thomas Straker, the chef the restaurant world loves to hate
'It was a heavy week,' sighs Thomas Straker, explaining why he recently ended up on a drip in New York. He's been nicknamed Britain's 'bad boy chef', and his fans love him. He owns two restaurants in Notting Hill and has 2.6 million Instagram followers: not far off Nigella. Another restaurant is coming in Manhattan, so he has been spending a lot of time there. 'Post-service, out late, every night,' he says. Straker Industries has many divisions: he runs a YouTube channel, has a butter range and is about to launch his own olive oil. On the day we meet, I spot him sauntering down Golborne Road towards his restaurant Acre for our interview. He's wearing a 'Game Eater' cap and a T-shirt with his own name on it, tucked into his Adidas trackies. He's a mere 40 minutes late. 'I dragged myself to Pilates this morning,' he tells me. He likes to get his top off in his videos. He has an air of Withnail – lazy hair, hazy eyes, serrated cheekbones – and he stalks similar parts of London. Straker is that evergreen currency: Notting Hill swank, updated for 2025, and it still has much going for it. He stops to say 'hey' to a babe a couple of times during the interview. Straker has a completely normal background for a Notting Hill celebrity but an abnormal one for a popular chef these days. He grew up shooting and foraging in Herefordshire, and his father was the second-in-command of the SAS and deputy director of Nato Special Forces in Afghanistan. A misspent youth did not land him at Sandhurst, but at cookery school. He worked afterwards at the Dorchester and Heston Blumenthal's Dinner, and then became the private chef to Sir Leonard Blavatnik, the third richest man in the UK. 'When Covid came around,' he says, 'I saw more food videos come up and thought I should try to do that. I was working in the States for a family of five. It didn't take me all day to make breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I made good use of my afternoons.' Two years later, he had become so popular on social media that he was able to open his first restaurant, Straker's. Straker's kitchen burnt down earlier this year. On the first weekend of May he woke up to 200 missed calls. It's 'not been particularly fun the past few months', he says. 'You suddenly go from a very comfortable, high-turnover business to a zero-turnover business… It's been incredibly stressful financially.' The restaurant reopened at the end of June. It is difficult to book a table, given how busy it is. We eat in Acre, his new brunch and lunch restaurant. He orders an iced matcha with agave honey for himself, and some pan con tomate(£6) for both of us –'I literally had this twice yesterday,' he says. Acre is meant to be more casual, more affordable, more in keeping with the post-Covid desire for expediency and comfort than Straker's. 'You want to make it affordable as possible for your customers, but we're ultimately running a business,' he says. 'But this is definitely an accessible way to come and have some good food. It's not dirt cheap because we're not using shit products, but we'll be doing cod here instead of sea bass over there.' A teenage girl having brunch with her father comes over to our table. She's doing her GCSE art project, and they've been asked to paint a building. She painted Straker's because she loves his videos so much, and she shows it to him. He smiles: 'Top grades for you! Let's buy it off you!' He then tells me about the olive oil he's got coming out: 'So I was in Soho at 3 a.m. the day before I ran the London marathon… I got carried away.' That evening, he met a man from Puglia who insisted he made the best olive oil around, and that he would send Straker a bottle. 'I was amazed it arrived,' Straker said. It was good, and now you'll be able to buy Thomas Straker's 'Donna Franca' olive oil this autumn. Po-faced restaurant industry types are suspicious of him. A couple of chefs have bad-mouthed him to me over the past few months. The popular Instagram page 'SluttyCheff' went viral with a satirical account of working as a woman in Straker's kitchen: 'Thank you guys… for welcoming me with such massive muscle-y open arms.' In 2023, he posted a picture of himself with the chefs at his restaurant: all eight were white men, and he got in trouble for it in the papers. I ask him if he thinks he's been unfairly treated. There's a long pause. 'I'm thinking about what I want to say and what I should say.' At the time, he expressed some regret over it and says now that he was 'scapegoated for an industry-wide thing. But that's in the past… I'm having a good run. That is only down to how hard I work with my team, how hard they work. Everyone has an equal opportunity in the business.' He's often accused of just riding the coattails of online hype. 'If people want to be like 'Oh he's not a chef, he's an Instagram chef', they can fucking say what they want,' he says. 'Open your fucking restaurant, whatever. I'm doing my own thing. It did piss me off for a bit, but now I'm just level. I know what I'm doing… I don't feel unfairly treated. It always comes around in the end.' You get a sense that the world might be bending towards Thomas Straker. Jonathan Nunn, who edits the left-wing food magazine Vittles, recently posted about how he respects Straker for not trying to hide how posh he is. 'Thomas Straker is just repeatedly posting pics hanging out with David Cameron or cradling Boris Johnson's baby.' When Straker isn't in London, he spends time at Carole Bamford's Daylesford estate, producing online content from the Cotswolds. America now beckons. He is taking over a site formerly overseen by Keith McNally (another enfant terrible of the restaurant world) and they're 'just about to go into building work'. I wonder what America will make of him. They tend to love posh Brits, less so gobby ones. Oasis didn't travel well across the Atlantic; Hugh Grant did. It will be interesting to see how Straker lands. In spirit, he is both Grant and the Gallaghers. When I ask what he gets up to in New York, he shows me a tattoo of a naked lady on his shoulder, done for him by a guy called 'Bang Bang'. He grins like a teenager. Being Thomas Straker looks like fun.
Entrepreneur
12-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur UK's London 100: All Things Butter
All Things Butter is a rapidly growing London startup disrupting the unassuming dairy scene Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur United Kingdom, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Industry: Food and Beverage Co-founded by childhood friends Toby Hopkinson and chef Thomas Straker, All Things Butter is a rapidly growing London startup disrupting the unassuming dairy scene. After securing £2.2m in seed funding, they sold 750k+ blocks of butter in 2024 — enough to scale Mount Everest 7.5 times! Born from a viral wild garlic butter recipe that hit 4 million views on Instagram, All Things Butter has turned a simple ingredient into a foodie craze. Their flavored butters — including the first-ever Cinnamon Bun and Chocolate varieties — have taken the market by storm. In just 10 weeks, they sold over 100,000 blocks. Dominating the £1.6m butter category, they support British farming, donating 1% of profits to RABI. Proudly British, they partner with one of England's oldest dairy farms, supporting farmers they know by name. All Things Butter is making butter cool again!
Telegraph
08-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
How to make your own flavoured butter (and save money)
It may be one of the priciest items in my fridge but proper butter is one ingredient I'd never be without. What joy would there be in a fluffy jacket potato were it not for the knob of melting gold? And as evidenced by the influx of highly enticing flavoured butters appearing both on the supermarket shelves and on my TikTok feed, I know I'm far from the only butter lover out there. So popular is the current 'buttertok' trend that social media star chef Thomas Straker, creator of salt and vinegar crisp butter among many others, now has his own eye-catchingly packaged range – including Cinnamon Bun (£2.85 for 115g; £2.48 per 100g, at Sainsbury's) – on the shelves at major supermarkets. Waitrose has reported a huge surge in sales of flavoured butters; especially its excellent-value frozen Garlic & Herb Butter (£3.50 for 200g; £1.75 per 100g), sales of which are up an incredible 569 per cent compared to this time last year. Meanwhile, M&S has introduced a top-tier flavoured butter line including smoked paprika and chilli (£2.75 for 100g) and a truly delicious Parmigiano Reggiano & Truffle butter – though at £3.75 for 100g, it's one to keep for special occasions. But with the price of butter already at a premium, is it worth shelling out even more for flavoured versions? I certainly see the appeal: their ability to instantly add a touch of magic to the most basic of foods, from an ear of corn to a simple seared steak or thick slice of toast, makes them worth keeping close to hand, especially when you're short on time and desire an easy flavour boost for dinner. But why splash the cash when they're so easy and, in most cases, much cheaper to make at home? Supermarket own-label British butter is currently priced around 80-90p per 100g and the additional ingredients can cost from just a few pence upwards depending on what flavours you go for. With savings to be made and a medley of flavours to experiment with, homemade flavoured butter is win-win. If you've got your own favourite blends, do share them with me in the comments below the article. If not, here's a quick guide and six delicious ideas to get you started. Skip to: The butter Straightforward supermarket own-label butter is perfect for flavouring. Choose unsalted as this provides the best flavourless base with which to work; salt can later be added to taste depending on the ingredients you add. Take it out of the fridge at least two hours before you use it so it's soft enough to blend in the flavours easily. If the butter is still a little firm, give it a quick beat with a wooden spoon or whisk until it's spreadable. Avoid types that spread straight from the fridge as you want the butter to set firmly once you've added your flavours. Back to index The flavours There are no limits here and you can go sweet or savoury, but plump for ingredients that pack a punch rather than mild-tasting additions which need to be used in large amounts to carry through. This is particularly important when adding liquids – you don't want to over-soften the final texture too much, so use a small amount of strong espresso or dark maple syrup, for example, rather than a delicate, golden style. Taste and adjust the finished butter to balance the flavours in the same way you would if making a dressing (or a cocktail for that matter), adding more sweetness, salt or some acidity, as needed. Back to index How to blend It's simply a case of mixing together room-temperature butter with your favourite flavourings. While a bowl and wooden spoon will suffice, an electric whisk or food processor (as I've used in the recipes below) will take the effort out of blending the ingredients together. Though if you do choose to beat the mixture by hand, any unevenly blended butter with visible marbling is still very attractive when sliced into discs or scooped into. Back to index How to store To maximise freshness and minimise odour transference (butter easily absorbs pungent smells), it's important to keep your flavoured butter chilled and airtight. Either pack it into a sealed container or wrap in greaseproof paper, rolling it to form a tight cylinder. Twist the ends then, ideally, place in a food bag for extra protection. Slice off discs from the log when ready to use, or spread or scoop directly from your container.
NZ Herald
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Thomas Straker Serves Up A Menu You'll Really Want To Eat
These winter-friendly plates by Thomas Straker will provide plenty of comfort. British chef Thomas Straker, whose cookbook Food You Want To Eat has just hit shelves in Aotearoa New Zealand, is known for an uncomplicated approach to cooking. Below, he shares three simple and warming recipes with Viva that encapsulate this philosophy. Together, the dishes make up an excellent dinner party menu for chilly weather.
Daily Mail
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Forget Lurpak – Gen Z has gone wild for a new kind of bougie butter
Boomer: Why is the blender out at 9am? Gen Z: I need exactly three hours to prepare my homemade butter. The Lurpak is in the fridge. This isn't just any butter… It's M&S butter? It's wunderkind chef Thomas Straker's bone marrow and burnt chilli butter recipe, which has racked up 19 million TikTok views. Sounds like what you'd get if Satan opened a deli. TikTok's crazy for it. 'I audibly moaned watching this,' one user wrote. Another called bone marrow butter their 'Roman Empire'. I'm not convinced the Roman Empire was founded on spreading spruced-up beef fat on toast. If you're not feeling the bone thing, give TikToker Mary Amzekria's saffron and cinnamon honey butter a go. Her recipe has 157,000 likes. What about my cholesterol? My doctor will go mad. I'll leave the honey-infused fats to your unsullied arteries. Judge away, but searches for flavoured butter on are up 444 per cent this year. Like that fancy salted one they serve at Côte brasserie? See, I'm au fait with foodie trends. Not quite. Waitrose's three most popular butter recipes are nduja, stilton and cowboy. Does that last one come with a Stetson hat and leather chaps? It's a mix of butter, garlic, mustard, lemon, chives, parsley, paprika, chilli and horseradish. Not churning up my appetite. It has buttered up writers at the Financial Times, who have described haute butters as 'disgustingly moreish' and the 'elite category of condiment'. Heresy! In my opinion, the only 'elite' condiment is Flora melting into a Warburtons crumpet. Eww! Flora is margarine. It's full of ultra-processed ingredients – worse still it's not even salted! What about all those adverts in the 1970s and 80s about it being low calorie and better for your heart? Total con! Appaz, margarine has nearly as high a plastic content as the tub it comes in. So it's a choice between piling on the pounds or ingesting so much plastic I'm essentially half Tupperware? Don't you listen to Dr Tim Spector's Zoe podcast? The fats in butter are apparently good for your gut microbiome, so they could actually help you to lose weight. And what's Dr Tim's standpoint on you infusing your butter with the contents of Tesco's sweet treat aisle? He wouldn't be best pleased. But if you insist on plain butter, at least make it Les Prés Salés. With a name that posh I'm betting a tub costs about the same as my first car. It comes as a fancily wrapped block, obviously. And it's only £5 for 250g, which is great value for what one TikTok taster described as 'the best butter in the world' and 'so good, it makes me emotional'. For a fiver, I'd want it to spread itself and sing me a tune while doing it. Five pounds is nothing. Manchester brand Pollen's £10 Croissant Butter with white chocolate is so popular, it even has a hundred-strong waiting list. A butter selling out faster than Oasis tickets. Whatever next? The real spenny stuff is served at restaurants. Diners pay £199 for the tasting menu at London's Michelin-starred Frog, the main event being chicken-skin butter and bread. I'd suggest you dunk a slice of Hovis in the remnants of the roasting tin. That's free. Then there's Plates, the first vegan Michelin joint, famous for its bright green whipped spirulina butter. That looks like someone's mixed butter with their neighbour's lawn trimmings. It really pops on your Instagram story. I should've known it would have something to do with 'collating your Instagram aesthetic'. Anyway, let me try this bone marrow concoction you've made. What do you think: butterly delicious? I Can't Believe It's Not Better.
