Tom Aikens finds his Muse

Tuesday 26 May 2026 9:07 am

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Tuesday 26 May 2026 9:08 am

Tom Aikens is one of the UK's most renowned chefs

From Norwich to London to Paris, Tom Aikens is serving his life in food, but does the conceit live up to the eat, asks Carys SharkeyWalking through the corridors of Norwich catering college, Tom Aikens knew he was exactly where he wanted to be. After “underperforming superbly” at school alongside his twin Robert – days Aikens describes now as “absolute carnage” – the 16-year-old had found his calling. So he was somewhat taken aback when a teacher stopped him to tell him that, as a matter of fact, he was very lucky to be there. Aikens, it turns out, was only accepted onto the course because they really wanted his brother. It seems fraternal loyalty runs deep on the east coast. Full of teenage angst and ambition, Aikens replied: “If that’s the case, then in 10 years time, you’re going to know who I am”. Unlike most teenagers, Aikens lived up to his lofty promises. In 1997, the chef became the youngest in Europe to win two Michelin stars, at London restaurant Pied à Terre, at the age of 26. He has cooked at some of Europe’s top restaurants and forged his own with a string of openings. He cemented his reputation as one of the UK’s best with regular TV appearances on shows like The Great British Menu. It’s a career that led him to open Muse in 2020, a small restaurant perched on a cobbled corner of Belgravia. And when I talk to Aikens about his journey, he speaks with an almost totemic seriousness. Which makes sense for a cook who is frequently referred to as a chef’s chef, or the sort of person who treats cooking and food, and their personal relationship to both, totally earnestly. And such solemn earnestness has evoked criticism, notably when the Daily Mail branded Muse’s menu the “most pretentious ever”. But a tasting menu based on the chef’s life – well, the good bits – is bound to rub some people up the wrong way. It’s also going to delight others. Ultimately, the concept lives or dies on the quality of the cooking. And the food at Muse is very, very good. In the beginning Aikens grew up in Norfolk and he and his brother were introduced to cooking at a young age. “My mum grew a lot of vegetables at home… We even had a little vegetable garden of our own that we looked after. And so we understood, at a very early age, seasonality: when things grow, how long it takes to be ready. So then we just started cooking with her in the kitchen as well.” At Muse a dish of ricotta from Old Farm Hall is slashed with bitter leaves and blood orange. It lilts between Italy and Norfolk, sweet and savoury, a celebration of produce that Aikens titles ‘A Walk Down the Road’. Snatches of seasonality pepper the menu, from pickled magnolia in the snacks through to the fish course: monkfish and broccoli served with a yin-yang of verdant wild garlic and lemongrass, elderflower and bergamot. It’s outrageously good, floral and earthy like rain in spring. London calling Years on from getting his hands dirty in the garden, after excelling at catering college, Aikens moved to London to work under David Cavalier and then Pierre Koffmann at La Tante Claire. It was frenetic, intense work. A time when kitchens demanded total dedication, be that blood, sweat or tears. To even get his foot through the door, Aikens offered to work for free, scrimping together savings to work non-stop in the capital. But all that white heat has been extinguished at Muse. Inside the small, intimate dining room, it feels like you’re being cooked for in a home (albeit one designed by someone with rather eclectic tastes). And there’s Aikens, walking between tables and serving the food – his life story – with detached flatness. Or perhaps a shrug: let the food talk for itself. There are little details too: a storybook menu, personalised knives, a takeaway box of jams and granola, and genuinely warm service. It amounts to a restaurant with real emotional heft, a foil to Aikens himself. À ParisAfter cutting his teeth in London, Aikens was at a crossroads. Perhaps with the words of his teacher still ringing in his ears, the young chef wanted to really challenge himself. “How can I make sure that I’m ahead of everyone else? I want to go work somewhere that is world-class, world-renowned. And of course, you had really good restaurants in London. But I really wanted to make a point of difference from the other chefs that were working in London.” And where else but Paris, in the 1990s the gastronome capital of the world? Aikens got a job working under legendary chef Joël Robuchon. The hours were gruelling and the work nonstop. It turns out, in the City of Lights, chefs can go weeks without seeing daylight. “I would get up at 4:45am and be at the restaurant by 5:40am, meeting the chef. We’d have a quick coffee and be in the kitchen by 5:50am, changed and ready to go. And then we work all the way through until 4:30pm. Go and have a bowl of ice cream, come back, and start food. And then we’d be finished by 1am. And then I get home at 1:45am and then up again at 4:45am. That was your day, every day.” As a boy, Aikens says he developed a love for French food travelling around the country during school holidays. His dad worked in the wine industry, and he would accompany him to far-flung vineyards, eating along the way. A love cultivated in youth came to maturity in back-breaking Paris. And here it is on the menu at Muse in the guise of a beautiful pigeon breast stuffed with a bourguignon farce. The dish – so classic, so technical – is called the ‘Love Affair’. Aikens kneads Aikens And then there’s the bread. In this course you can taste everything Aikens cares about as a cook, from baking with his mum to showcasing some of the best produce in the world. And perhaps most importantly, the desire to feed people. To make them happy with carbs and fat. The bread is served with an explainer: “Making sourdough for the first time is like riding a horse. Both are wild, living beings…” There, again, is that earnestness that rubs me up the wrong way. I doubt Aikens cares though: this is very much his schtick. It wouldn’t matter if this course came with a video of him riding a horse, it’s probably the best bread and butter course in London. Aikens is a wildly talented cook caught up in his own rhapsody. But when food tastes this good, who can blame him? Aikens’ muse is Tom Aikens, and the London restaurant scene is all the better for it. Oh, and that teacher? Aikens sent him press clippings after achieving his two stars at 26. Exactly 10 years later. Burn.