Simon Hopkinson's Biography

Heralding from Bury in Lancashire, when he was just 17 Simon Hopkinson worked in a restaurant in Normandy.

Indeed, before concentrating on his career as a food writer, Simon Hopkinson was a highly respected chef.

He had opened his first restaurant, the Shed, near Fishguard, before he was 21-years-old.

He had a spell as chef at Hilaire in the Old Brompton Road in London.

In 1987, together with Terence Conran, Simon Hopkinson opened Bibendum Restaurant in the Michelin Building on London's Fulham Road. He left Bibendum in 1995.

In 2005 Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories was judged "the most useful recipe book ever written" by a panel of food experts in Waitrose Food Illustrated and prompted Rachel Cooke in The Observer to write:

"I thought about Kitchen Essays last week, when I heard that Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories had been voted the most useful cookbook of all time by a panel of leading chefs, restaurateurs and writers. There is no doubt that Roast Chicken is a brilliant book: straightforward, readable and full of good things (I can vouch for Hopkinson's poached cod with lentils and salsa verde, which is easy to pull off and yet makes you seem, in the eyes of your guests, so wonderfully accomplished). It is very useful, but would I love it any the less if it were not? Only marginally..."

Other books by Simon Hopkinson include Gammon and Spinach, which contains some of his work as food columnist for The Independent.

In 2011 the BBC commissioned Simon Hopkinson to present a six-part series for BBC One, called The Good Cook.