Whatever happened to Ian Pengelley?

Whatever happened to Ian Pengelley?
Thursday 30 November, 2006

After attending the Gordon Ramsey dinner at ARIA back in October I was keen to start reading 'Humble Pie'. Meaning and doing are quite different things but I am pleased to share I have finally read it (and I enjoyed it too).

What most interested me (aside from the background about Gordon) was his reference to Ian Pengelley. I had dined at Pengelleys back in April 2005 - it had been touted as the latest and greatest place to dine in London and whilst it was very good - there were a few disappointments.

As I reached p201 of Humble Pie I was pleasantly surprised to read the following passage,

"A more recent mistake has been our involvement with Ian Pengelley. This has taught me that the only chefs we back in the future financially must be chefs who have trained within the Gordon Ramsey Group. Pengelley, formally of the much celebrated Notting Hill Asian Fusion restaurant E&O, was the first chef from outside the group to receive our backing and I think it is fair to say that it was pretty much a disaster from the start - a total fucking flop.

We helped him set up the restaurant in Sloane St, Knightsbridge, on the old site of Monte's, but it lasted less than a year, and we've since broken ties with him. There were bad reviews, a kitchen that was in total chaos and a huge gap between his idea of what the restaurant should be about, and ours. The guy used to wear flip flops to work. He was also, as he has admitted in the press, drinking. Late last year, we finally closed the place; we were just losing too much money to continue.

I'd be the first to admit that it was an error of judgment on our part. I was also taken in by his menu, by his fucking chilli salt squid, by all those amazing Japanese and Thai influences. It was a massive commitment on our side because, before he opened, we sent him off to Vietnam on a three month sabbatical to do some recipe research; he went with Jason Atherton, shortly before he opened maze. Ian told us about this cookery school where you get allotted to a village in the mountains; 500 dollars buys you a stay with a family who will show you all the classic ways with Vietnamese ingredients. I was hooked by this idea because it seemed so perfect; the chefs would learn amazing new skills and recipes, and the family would earn enough dollars to buy a small piece of land at the end of it.

....basically, the two of them had just been on a jolly. Ian Pengelley, meanwhile, has disappeared into the mists of North London.

Very interesting....what am I going to read next? The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten.