Tom Barnes
Wednesday 22 October
Tom opened his first solo restaurant, Skof, in Manchester in May 2024, and it only took until February 2025 for the restaurant to receive its first Michelin Star. What’s more, this came after Skof had taken home Best New Restaurant at the Good Food Guide awards, and had earned the number 8 spot in SquareMeal’s Top 100 Restaurants for 2025, making it the highest new entry.
An ambitious, Cumbrian-born chef, it was perhaps inevitable that Tom, after a grounding working under Duncan Collinge at The Lakeside Hotel, would join Simon Rogan’s team at the famous L’Enclume in his home county in 2011. In the space of two years, he rose from the rank of Chef de Partie to Head Chef.
After being awarded the coveted Roux Scholarship in 2014, at the age of 25, Tom did stints at three-Michelin starred restaurants Hof van Cleve in Belgium, and Geranium in Denmark. On his return to the UK, he teamed back up with Simon Rogan, going on to take up the role of Executive Chef at his Umbel Restaurant Group, overseeing L'Enclume, Rogan & Co. and Henrock and Home by Simon Rogan.