Originally from Poole, Elly moved to Plymouth at a young age and while she recalls positive early memories of her father and stepmother cooking, Elly’s first job was a paper round. Fortuitously, her local pub was on her paper route and before long, Elly learned of a job as a kitchen porter there and joined the team at 15.

‘I remember one night the chef didn’t turn up – classic, it still happens now – and the head chef said to me ‘Elly, you’re going to have to jump on starters’,’ she says. ‘I was a bit shocked! I didn’t know what anything was, from mussels to garlic purée to the herbs they used. All I could remember was coming home to tell my dad ‘Dad I cooked mussels!’.’

That single shift from kitchen porter to commis chef was the catalyst that changed Elly’s perspective on cooking – a passion she chose to pursue in catering college (‘I found it quite boring to be honest, I felt I wasn’t learning enough’). Elly might’ve abandoned cooking altogether if it wasn’t for her partner, who worked for local chefs Chris and James Tanner at their influential restaurant Tanners in Plymouth. An introduction led Elly to the kitchen of the three AA rosette restaurant.

‘Back in the day you just couldn’t get a job there,’ she explains. ‘I was lucky enough to work for Nathan Davies for about a year and a half in Brecon and, thanks to that experience, I got the gig at Tanners.' After a stint of just over 18 months with the Tanner brothers, Elly wanted to elevate her cookery and turned her attention to the world of Michelin-starred restaurants. It was here that she’d cross paths with one of the South West’s most influential talents: Simon Hulstone.

Simon’s Torquay restaurant, The Elephant, has had a Michelin star since 2006 and this would be Elly’s first introduction to this level of fine dining. ‘Simon’s food then was very modern and really technique-driven. He had an allotment too so every few days we’d pick our own fresh flowers and micro herbs. This would be 2010 or 2011 and not that many restaurants were doing things like that.’

It’s often said that the best young chefs are sponges: they soak up the best practices of their mentors quickly, understanding which chefs are doing the best and why, and learn what it takes to succeed. This is where Elly came into her own – extracting, learning and progressing quickly during her early career, always looking out for what’s next. ‘Respectfully, I’ve always looked at the head chefs I’ve worked for and, as a young chef, I thought ‘when I’m your age, I want to be better than you’. I always had that mentality to progress.’

After moving to cook at Lucknam Park, a chef friend persuaded her to apply for MasterChef. This was in 2016, and her time on the show would be the start of her competitive TV cookery career. ‘The MasterChef team told me they had to bump someone else when I applied to get me on the show, which I was grateful for,’ she says. Elly placed second in MasterChef, catapulting her career, and two seasons of Great British Menu, representing the South West, would later follow.

‘The TV shows were good – if you didn’t know your skills then you’d be in trouble,’ she notes. ‘I did well, but not well enough, even though I got a 10 from Tom Aikens – his first in seven years – but I just missed out on the finals. That was enough for me.’

However, despite finding success in front of the camera, her TV debut didn’t precede an immediate change in career, and Elly remained at Lucknam Park for another year. It was only when a friend mentioned that the legendary Angel in Dartmouth, founded by industry icon Joyce Molyneux, was looking for a head chef, that she started to think about her next move.

Elly visited The Angel three times before eventually saying yes to the job, and confesses how challenging those early months were. ‘I’d gone from doing 60, 70, 80 covers for dinner to sometimes doing four or six covers a night. I was cooking and serving. We had front of house but they were so naive and didn’t know anything about restaurants. It took years to build the team up, and even then our summers were heaving but our winters were a bit awful. I did MasterChef again and Great British Menu to help get some more people to the restaurant.’

Despite the challenges, the legacy Joyce established at The Angel was one that Elly attempted to carry on. ‘We made it a bit of a destination,’ she explains. ‘I tried to be very true to myself and true to Joyce but bring a touch of modernity to it all. When I first started at 26 that’s all I wanted.’

Sadly, like many restaurants, the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns meant the restaurant could no longer turn a profit. It got two AA rosettes but failed to get a Michelin star; something that clearly had a profound effect on Elly. ‘We fucked up,’ she remembers. ‘I’m pretty sure we had a French Michelin inspector in once and there were just a couple of things wrong on the night. But it teaches you a good lesson. Now here at Fowlescombe we’re really on it. Yes, there might be mistakes – but we catch them before they go out.’

Elly got married and started a family all while finishing her cookbook (The Angel of Dartmouth). ‘I left the restaurant and took a little time off until the chef at 27 in Kingsbridge told me they needed help over at The Millbrook near Salcombe. I went over to the pub and got chatting to the owner who was talking me through everything they were trying to do. Honestly I just wanted to do a few days, help them get out of the weeds and see what else was out there – but he showed me around and took me to the retreat.’

The retreat was an expansive farm and restaurant space that would eventually become Fowlescombe Farm. Elly was speechless. The Millbrook was a loved and successful pub and this new venture, attached to land the family owned, was to be a huge investment and development.

Elly’s career there started slowly. With a three-month-old at home, she started doing a few days a week developing the Fowlescombe menu and worked the odd service at Millbrook, before taking the helm full-time in July 2025.

‘I oversee the food both here and at the pub, and we got into the Michelin Guide quite quickly as well,’ she says. ‘But it’s very different to what I did at The Angel. Over there, it was a tasting menu; all very modern, clean and precise. Here we focus on the farm; on the regenerative practices and a connection to the land.’ From how the vegetables are grown and soil health to planting certain flowers to attract pollinators, everything at Fowlescombe is intentional.

‘We have our own cows and rare breed lamb,’ Elly says. ‘We make all our own charcuterie, which we then sell to places like The Ledbury. The whole 440-acre estate is so well managed.’ Elly notes that the evolution of Fowlescombe has already come on so far since opening in 2025, and her own cookery has come on leaps and bounds too. ‘We've done more here in six months than I did in seven years at The Angel. There is just nothing in Devon like this.’

Elly Wentworth’s remarkable career has set her apart as one of the very best chefs in the south west of England. She has consistently championed the region’s abundant produce, be it during her time representing Devon on our TV screens or leading its restaurants. Now she is cooking her most delicious food yet – and the best is still yet to come.

‘We have a bit of a five-year plan,’ she explains. ‘We have a 40-cover restaurant in the works for non-residents to come and experience what we’re doing. It’ll be a farm-to-fork ethos of course, but a little more relaxed: we’re thinking live fire and great charcuterie and local cheeses and things. Everything will be from the land, but a bit more accessible. Then we’re hoping to transform the rectory – the smaller existing dining space – into an eight-cover chefs table, launch it with a tasting menu, and really go for it.’

The work of chefs up and down the country continues to inspire Elly, but she’s conscious that Fowlescombe always needs to stand out – something that’s always so important to destination restaurants. ‘We’re really good at this now, but we’re always chasing those little improvements. We call it ‘our 5%’; what are the 5% of things we can work on and just get better at?’

On being a female lead in a kitchen, Elly is both pragmatic and self aware. ‘All the chefs I’ve worked for have been great at encouraging and rewarding their teams, no matter what, but sometimes you do get tested. If you worked hard for these guys then they respected you. But if you did something wrong and lied about it, you’d be in trouble. Female or otherwise it didn’t matter.’

The long-term dream might be to expand Fowlescombe, but Elly is carefully tight-lipped about it. There’s certainly enough to keep her occupied far into the future already, and she’s adamant she’s there for the entire ride: ‘This will be my last job.’