Adam Tooby-Desmond has been appointed head chef at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park London this month. He succeeds Jon Bowring, who has been the two Michelin-starred restaurant’s head chef since 2019 and has decided to “take on a new venture”.

Tooby-Desmond has been working at the restaurant since 2017, having joined as a demi chef de partie. Originally from Cambridge, he trained at Westminster Kingsway College in London before joining the University of Cambridge’s St John’s College in 2011 as an apprentice.

After two years at Mark Poynton’s Michelin-starred Alimentum restaurant in Cambridge, Tooby-Desmond joined the team at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.

The celebrity chef’s first venture outside the village of Bray in Berkshire opened in 2011, marking a new direction not just for Blumenthal, but also for the capital’s restaurant scene. The food at Dinner pays homage to Britain’s gastronomic history and the venue won a Michelin star just nine months after opening, earning its second in 2014.