Oliver Rowe

Since chef Oliver Rowe and his restaurant Konstam at the Prince Albert were the subject of the BBC2 series Urban Chef, he has been in demand for television appearances and conference speaking.

Oliver was born and brought up in Camden, North London. His first professional cooking job was as an assistant in an art school kitchen in Tuscany aged 14. Ten years later he returned to embark on a career as a chef. In 1997 he joined the kitchen at the highly acclaimed Moro in Clerkenwell. Three and a half years later he became the Head Chef for the restaurant, Maquis, nominated for Time Out’s Best Local Restaurant award.  In 2003 he developed Konstam, a café in King’s Cross, and subsequently opened Konstam at the Prince Albert, London’s first locally sourced restaurant with over 80% of the produce used being sourced from in and around London.

His restaurant was the focus of BBC2’s series The Urban Chef, which followed Oliver around London in his search for local ingredients alongside the nerve-shredding backdrop of setting up, funding and designing the new restaurant.

Since the Urban Chef, Oliver has also appeared on many television programmes including Local Food Heroes, Saturday Kitchen, Great Food Live, BBC News, BBC Breakfast, The One Programme and Market Kitchen.

Passionate about being environmentally friendly and supportive of British farmers, Oliver Rowe is in demand as a public speaker and recent speaking engagements include talks at the Manchester Museum of Science, London’s Science Museum, Kings Cross Business Forum, Eating for Britain, The Houses of Parliament, New Covent Garden and Western International.

Oliver and the restaurant have featured in numerous publications including The Times, The Sunday Times, Sunday Times Style Magazine, The Independent, The Telegraph, ES Magazine, Observer Food Monthly, Time Out, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure.

Oliver is currently writing a book on seasonal food for Faber scheduled for release in spring 2011.