Dorchester picks baby-faced 26-year-old as youngest ever head chef

A CULINARY rising star has become the youngest head chef at one of London’s grandest and most venerable restaurants at the age of 26.

Tom Booton, who started his career when he was only 15, will run The Grill at The Dorchester, beating the record of his famous predecessor Anton Mosimann, who was 28 when he was made maitre chef de cuisines in 1975.

Baby-faced Mr Booton, right, previously ran the kitchen at The Westbury in Mayfair and was hired after The Dorchester’s general manager Robert Whitfield ate there before Christmas and asked to meet the head chef.

“He had a Colchester crab dish and said it was the best meal he had ever had in his life,” Mr Booton said. “When he saw me, he was surprised and shocked and said, ‘You’re the head chef?’ I think he thought I was about 12.” He added that he regularly gets asked for his ID in bars.

Mr Booton will run a team of about 15 chefs at the Park Lane institution, which opened in 1931. The son of an Army captain and an NHS nurse, he is the latest in a growing number of chefs in their twenties running major London restaurants.

Clare Smyth was 29 when she became head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s flagship in Chelsea, and Ben Murphy was 26 when he got the role at Launceston Place in Kensington.

Baking brownies at home inspired Mr Booton to become a chef and he went on to do work experience at Le Talbooth restaurant in Colchester, close to his parents’ home. He said: “I fell in love with it and they offered me a job.” He said he wanted to make The Grill more accessible and modern. New dishes being planned include lobster thermidor tart, and native-breed ribeye, maitake mushroom ketchup, creamed spinach and bone marrow mash.

Other innovations will include a rotisserie mainly dedicated to vegetables and a pudding bar where diners will be able to sit after their main courses.

The Dorchester is owned by the Sultan of Brunei and was recently boycotted by celebrities after the country said it would punish gay sex with stoning. The plans were eventually dropped.