Alastair Little

Little was born on 25 June 1950 in Colne, Lancashire, to Robert and Marion (née Irving). His father was an officer in the British Navy. Little studied social anthropology and archaeology at Downing College, Cambridge, where he found the college food "horrible" but the wines "revelatory". ==Career==

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. He moved to 192 (Kensington Park Road), where he created simple menus that changed daily, a service model "unheard of back then", according to Sheila Dillon. Reviews were favourable. "Alastair gets more publicity than Princess Diana" said his fellow restaurateur Simon Slater. In 1995, the partners opened a second restaurant, also named Alastair Little, off Ladbroke Grove in West London. The Times's restaurant critic Jonathan Meades described it as feeling "altogether right". In 2017, Little moved to Sydney with his wife Sharon and opened a pop up restaurant "Little Bistro" inside the CBD Hotel, owned by the Merivale Group. He was the co-owner of restaurant Et Al in Potts Point, in the north of the Kings Cross area of Sydney. In 2019, he started a home delivery service in London based on the dishes he had created for Tavola called 'ByAlastairLittle'. == Impact ==

Little influenced the development of modern British cuisine. According to Sheila Dillon he has "a place in British food history that is unchallengeable", saying he changed cooking professionally in Britain from "a default option for those who couldn't think of anything better to do" into "a craft that attracts good minds, skilled artisans, and even people who want to change the world". Dan Lepard said he "changed the way we eat food in Britain". Angela Hartnett said he "influenced the future of cooking". The Independent called his influence "as important as [Albert Roux and Michel Roux] and Marco Pierre White". == Personal life and death ==

From 1984 to 1995, he was partner to Kirsten Pedersen, with whom he had two children. In 1995, while teaching in Umbria, he met Sharon, and in 2000 they married. He and Sharon, who is from Sydney, had one child. Little died at home in Australia on 3 August 2022, at the age of 72. ==Publications==

Throughout the 90s Little appeared on Masterchef (BBC1), Hot Chefs, and Ready Steady Cook (ITV). In his later career, Little contributed food writing to both The Guardian newspaper and Noble Rot magazine. In 2017 Little was the subject of an episode of BBC Radio 4's Food Programme hosted by broadcaster Sheila Dillon. In 1998, photographer Barry Marsden took his portrait. The resulting black and white image now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London. ==Awards==

In 1993, his restaurant won the Times Restaurant of Year award. ==References==