Alastair Little was a British chef, cookbook author and restaurateur.
19 Facts About Alastair Little
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Alastair Little first became known in the 1980s for his eponymous Soho restaurant and frequent appearances on British television.
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Alastair Little's father was an officer in the British Navy.
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Alastair Little studied social anthropology and archaeology at Downing College, Cambridge, where he found the college food "horrible" but the wines "revelatory".
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Alastair Little began producing meals for groups of other students, including Rowley Leigh.
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Alastair Little graduated in 1972 and planned to become a film editor; to break in to the industry he got a job as a messenger for a film studio in Soho.
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Alastair Little supplemented his earnings as a waiter at Small's, a Knightsbridge cafe.
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Alastair Little recalls checking what was in the refrigerator each morning, then going shopping at the small produce markets and butchers in Soho.
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Alastair Little moved to a restaurant in Wrentham, Suffolk, for two years, and then to one in Putney, and in 1981 he started at L'Escargot in Soho.
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Alastair Little moved to 192, where he created simple menus that changed daily, a service model "unheard of back then", according to Sheila Dillon.
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Alastair Little began studying Italian cuisine by reading Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cookbook.
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Alastair Little dispensed with cover charges and 'extras' for service and vegetables.
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Alastair Little started a deli in Notting Hill, West London, called Tavola.
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In 2017, Alastair Little moved to Sydney with his wife Sharon and opened a pop up restaurant "Alastair Little Bistro" inside the CBD Hotel, owned by the Merivale Group.
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Alastair Little was the co-owner of restaurant Et Al in Potts Point, in the north of the Kings Cross area of Sydney.
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Alastair Little has been called the 'godfather of modern British cooking'.
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Alastair Little died at home in Australia on 3 August 2022, at the age of 72.
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In 2017 Alastair Little was the subject of an episode of BBC Radio 4's Food Programme hosted by broadcaster Sheila Dillon.
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Alastair Little's 1993 Keep It Simple won the Glenfiddich Award for Best Food Book of the Year.