Obsessed with food from an early age, Freddy Bird grew up in the countryside in the South West, where he spent his days messing about on the River Chew, fishing and cooking his catch over the fires he built. An older Freddy went on to train at Ballymaloe; he then travelled and ate his way around the Mediterranean, Northern Spain and the Middle East before working in London at 2 Michelin star restaurant The Square and then Moro. Freddy returned to the South West to open the Lido in Bristol, where he has won critical acclaim with his distinct style of cookery, ‘Bird Food’.
Bird Food is a unique take on Moorish and Mediterranean cooking with a strong focus on provenance. Primarily cooked over fire and in wood ovens at the Lido, it’s truly characterful cookery… relaxed, unpretentious and designed for sharing – put simply it’s food cooked to make people happy.
Bird Food also takes frequent flights from the restaurant to the great outdoors – whether a spectacular outdoor dinner for paying guests or just rustling up something delicious for his family – from woodland, to beach, to river bank you can find Freddy building fire-pits both big and small to cook over.
Freddy is currently co-presenting the Channel 4 series Hidden Restaurants alongside Michel Roux Jr. He is also Executive Chef at both Bristol’s Glassboat and Three Brothers Burgers restaurant and will launch the Thames Lido restaurant in summer 2017.
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