Alastair Little, who has died aged 72, was a chef who symbolised for many the spurt of energy that revolutionised UK food in the 1980s and was described as “modern British cooking”. Cooks looked beyond the Anglo-French model to the dishes and methods of other cuisines. In the London restaurant that took his name and opened on Frith Street in Soho in 1985, diners might encounter sushi, tataki, carpaccio, pizze, chorizo, couscous, or Thai or Chinese spices, served all on the same day alongside French staples and English standbys.
Alastair was also a harbinger of deeper trends, such as the postwar infiltration of retail services by the hitherto professional middle-class. In earlier years, actors, to name but one trade, had often become restaurateurs, after years in other walks of life. Alastair was well educated, a Cambridge graduate, and young: he went straight into his chosen occupation. Nor did he follow the well-worn path of apprenticeship or vocational study. He was self-taught, and was only ever a head chef in his own kitchen (bar a few early weeks of part-time skivvying).
