PHOTOGRAPHS ISSY CROKER
Charity founders Henry Dimbleby and Thomasina Miers (below) have recruited top chefs such as Nicole Pisani (far left) to leave schoolchildren demanding “More!”
ILLUSTRATIONS: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES. THOMASINA MIERS PORTRAIT: CAROLINE IRBY. NICOLE PISANI PORTRAIT: HARRIET CLARE
Ginger peas. Sweet potato with tahini. Chicken marinated in soy. If these dishes sound familiar, you might have eaten them at Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurant Nopi in London’s Soho. Or perhaps you’ve had them at Gayhurst Primary School in Hackney, east London. That’s because, for the past three years, former Nopi head chef Nicole Pisani has been in charge of the school kitchen, serving up Middle Eastern-inspired classics to 500 children aged under 11. The cost to the pupils? £1.75 per head.
“We always joke that when the kids grow up and go to Nopi, they’re going to recognise the dishes and wonder why they’re now paying £20 for them!” Nicole says, sitting in her chef’s apron in a tiny office out the back of the school kitchen, in which a team of eight chefs are prepping 40kg each of any given ingredient.
How Nicole ended up at Gayhurst isn’t as random as it might sound. She’s the leading light in an initiative called Chefs in Schools, set up by Henry Dimbleby, founder of ‘healthy fast food’ chain Leon, Thomasina Miers, founder of the Mexican minichain Wahaca and Louise Nichols, executive head teacher at Gayhurst. Feeling burned out from the long hours, Nicole quit cheffing to go travelling – then she spotted a tweet from Henry, whose children were at Gayhurst, saying the school was looking for a new chef. Her only experience of kids’ food was a few recipes she’d written for a family magazine in Malta, where she grew up (“If I’d known then where my career would take me, I might have paid more attention,” she says smiling), but the promise of regular hours and weekends off sounded like the work/life balance she’d been craving.