Edinburgh born Neil Rankin is a physics graduate from Salford University, worked as a Sound Engineer and opened a chain of sandwich bars, before retraining at a Cordon Bleu culinary school at the relatively late age of 29.
At the start of his career he trained exclusively in French food in restaurants including the award winning French Table in Surbiton before retraining at Gordon Ramsey’s Tante Marie cordon bleu cooking school.
He then went on to work for the likes of Nuno Mendes during his own loft supper clubs and then moved to Pennyhill Park in Surrey to train under 2 star Michael Wignal.
From there he went on to do a number of Michelin stages before ending up at Rhodes 24 in the city.
SInce then he has been extremely busy having a hand in numerous culinary ventures across London with critical acclaim.
Barbecoa with Adam Perry Lang and Jamie Oliver
Was the head chef of Pitt Cue Co.
John Salt as a fusion BBQ restaurant
Smokehouse in Islington in 2013 – the only BBQ restaurant in the UK to have 2 AA rosettes and be in the Good Food Guide and a second Smokehouse in Chiswick April 2015.
Bad Egg Diner in Moorgate in 2014 an all-day diner that focuses on eggs and showcased a lot of Neil’s passions including Korean and BBQ food.
He is now part of London’s major new Street Food venture London Union (@LondonUnion), and has written guest columns for Independent on Sunday.
Neil competed in the 9th series of BBC2′s Great British Menu, the brief was to create a menu to honour the men and women involved in the DDay landings. Neil competed for the Scottish region, battling it out against two other Scottish chefs.
Neil’s first book, Low and Slow was published by Ebury Books in 2016, it has been really well received and hit the bestsellers lists.
He opened his own restaurant Temper in Soho in November 2016. It has received extremely positive reviews across the board from the critics. Temper features an open kitchen grill with live fire cooking, a taco bar upstairs and serving plenty of meat & mezcal! A secondTemper is planned for 2017 in Angel, Islington.
See more Saturday Kitchen chefs