Jun Tanaka

Chef Jun Tanaka is the fresh-faced, mild mannered executive head chef and founder of Pearl Bar and Restaurant in London. The talented chef is reached into people's homes back in 2009 with his first cookbook Simple to Sensational in which he offered up a series of stunning and straight-forward dishes. The book evolved from Tanaka's experience of training novices how to cook in the TV series Cooking It. "I have come up with a strategy to teach people how to get to a certain level with their cooking. It's about starting with the basics, creating building blocks, and cultivating and nurturing people's confidence and skills. More recently in 2010, Jun's passion branched out when he and chef Mark Jankel set about an off the wall endeavour to create a pop up street kitchen serving gourmet cuisine from a quirky New York-style van for the London Food Festival. Using locally sourced ingredients to create a quintessentially British menu quite literally paid off as the duo donated their sale proceeds to charity group, Action against Hunger. www.pearl-restaurant.com