Will Holland

Will Holland

Will Holland

Will Holland has been working in Michelin-starred restaurants since the age of eighteen, spending nearly two decades working in some of the finest classical restaurants in the country. Now working on the beautiful island of Jersey, his style combines the island's produce and contemporary flair, focusing on fantastic ingredients, excellent technique and mouth-watering food.

As long as Will Holland can remember, he wanted to be a chef. Although he came from a more academic family, it was one which shared an appreciation of good food: 'When me and my sister got home from school and my mum and dad finished work, cooking dinner was a family thing. We were all in the kitchen cooking and we’d sit down at the dinner table to have dinner and we would all wash up afterwards. Me and my sister were never allowed to eat in front of the television or anything like that. That kind of appreciation of food and the importance of eating was in me from a young age.' His first experience eating Michelin-starred food, at two-star Lettonie with Martin Blunos, came aged twelve – an experience that still resonates today. 'I still remember the grandeur; that food is a serious thing. That was twenty-five years ago, or something like that, and I can still remember it.'

Keen to learn anything he could about food, at twelve he secured a job in the local family butcher – 'really renowned, one of the best butchers in Bristol' – staying until he left home aged seventeen. 'Ten percent of my job was actually getting my hands on the meat. I remember mincing meat and making sausages and making faggots, taking the wings off chickens. It was amazing, just to have that experience from that age. I stood there with my eyes wide open, fascinated about learning where brisket comes from on the animal, where this came from, where that came from. There’s lots of chefs these days, if you ask them where brisket came from on a cow, they wouldn’t have a clue where it’s from and I was learning that when I was twelve or thirteen years old.'

By fourteen he was completely sure that he wanted to be a chef and arranged for his secondary-school work experience to be with Michael Kitts at the Swallow Royal Hotel in his hometown of Bristol. 'It was the best place to eat, in the best hotel in Bristol. I applied there and turned up and that was the first commercial kitchen I stepped foot in.' When asked what appealed about this life he says: 'It was the camaraderie and the brotherhood that’s in a kitchen and the real team effort.'

Two years in catering college followed, then his first professional kitchen job at Homewood Park in Bath, working under Gary Jones (now executive chef at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons) who had earned the restaurant a Michelin star and four AA rosettes. 'Gary was a fantastic mentor and he was what I needed. I soon realised I’d got a lot to learn and if I wanted to be successful, I needed to start from the bottom up. And that’s what I went about doing.'

His next job was at Gravetye Manor, a luxury hotel in the Sussex forest with an enormous Elizabethan kitchen garden in the grounds. He worked here for five years under Mark Raffin.

He joined Alan Murchison’s L’Ortolan in Reading in 2004, initially as sous chef, but was promoted to head chef within months and ran his kitchen there for three years. He then became head chef at Murchison’s sister restaurant La Bécasse in 2007. 'Alan was a big influence and a big mentor in my career. Obviously he continued to teach me how to cook and how to run a kitchen, but it’s more than that. It’s about how you talk to guests, and it’s about your persona. A successful chef is so much more than being able to cook.'

Will earned his first Michelin star at La Bécasse – one of the proudest days of his life – two years after joining and before his thirtieth birthday. He also added three AA rosettes to his growing list of accolades, with the Good Food Guide naming him one of the ten most influential chefs of the decade. With a long work history under classically trained chefs from the Raymond Blanc and Roux brothers school of cooking, the food that earned Will his star remained in this vein.

In 2014, Will Holland opened Coast on the Pembrokeshire shore – his own restaurant, in a purpose-built venue. His new restaurant offered an altogether different proposition to the Michelin-starred fine dining restaurants he had worked in for nearly two decades. 'Coast is definitely a difference in style as it’s a lot more informal, it’s a lot more relaxed. I do think that’s the way the restaurant and dining scene is going. It’s not about white tablecloths, it’s not about tray service, it’s not about four or five waiters to one table, it’s about really, really good food.'

Although his seafood-heavy menu at Coast displayed the signs of classic French technique, he also took influences from anywhere in the world.

Will Holland has often spoken of his drive for success and his early ambition to be the best. Having proved himself in more traditional fine-dining restaurants around the country, he moved on to take over Ocean at the Atlantic, on the island of Jersey, in October 2017. Since joining the team he has opened The Tasting Room, an intimate fourteen-cover restaurant within Ocean, which highlights the very best of Jersey's produce.