Ex-Hedone chef opening Devon-inspired pop-up restaurant

Ex-Hedone head chef Lee Skeet is to open a pop-up restaurant in London inspired by his coastal Devon roots and experience working in Michelin-starred kitchens.

Lee Skeet at The Shop NW10 will serve a set menu of four courses plus snacks featuring seafood delivered fresh from Devon and Cornwall each morning.

Skeet - who has also worked with Tom Aikens and Marcus Wareing – left Hedone 18 months ago and has since run a series of pop-ups around the capital.

“I’d been doing fine-dining up in London and now I’m cooking more my own style of food based around the ingredients I grew up with,” he told BigHospitality.

“My food is fairly simple, I try to get the best ingredients I can and do something simple with that."

Dishes are set to include Slow-cooked Turbot, Roast Chicken Consommé, Smoked Potato and Guanciale and Caramelised Langoustine with Bone Marrow, Beef & Shellfish Vinaigrette.

Skeet said he was aiming to run ‘three or four more’ pop-ups this summer each lasting up to a week.

“I’m hoping to do a few around London, I’ve done one in Marylebone, Hackney and Brixton and now this one in Kensal Rise so I’m trying to go all over the capital,” he said.

Though the chef admitted he would eventually like to own his own restaurant he was unsure whether he would be moving from pop-up to permanent just yet.

“I decided when I left Hedone that if I do go back to a permanent restaurant it would have to be perfect,” said Skeet.

“There are things I would want to do like serving a certain style of food, having a set menu every day and a limit on covers. If there was a chance for me to do that perfect role then I would love to but I’m enjoying doing my own pop-ups at the moment.”

Lee Skeet at The Shop NW10 will run in Kensal Rise on the 22 and 23 February.