Tara Wigley Author

Sami Tamimi was born and raised in Jerusalem and was immersed in food from childhood. He started his career as commis-chef in a Jerusalem hotel and worked his way up, through many restaurants and ethnic traditions, to become head chef of Lilith, one of the top restaurants in Tel Aviv in the 1990’s. Sami moved to London in 1997 and worked at Baker and Spice as head chef, where he set up a traiteur section with a rich Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean spread. In 2002 he partnered with Noam Bar and Yotam Ottolenghi to set up Ottolenghi in Notting Hill. The company now has four stores and two restaurants, NOPI and ROVI, all in central London. In his position as the executive head chef, Sami is involved in developing and nurturing young kitchen talents and creating new dishes and innovative menus. Alongside Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi is co-author of two bestselling cookbooks: Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Jerusalem: A Cookbook. Tara Wigley spent a decade working in publishing – at the Abner Stein Literary Agency in London and then Simon & Schuster – before going to cookery school in Ireland when her twins were 18 months old. She met Yotam Ottolenghi in 2011 and has been writing in collaboration with him ever since. She began by developing, testing and writing recipes for Yotam’s weekly column in the Guardian magazine and his longer monthly column, in 2017, for the New York Times. Plenty More. NOPI: The Cookbook, SWEET and Ottolenghi SIMPLE were all written with Tara. Yotam Ottolenghi is the restaurateur and chef-patron of the four London-based Ottolenghi delis, as well as the NOPI and ROVI restaurants. He is the author of eight bestselling and multi-award-winning cookery books. Yotam has been a weekly columnist for the Saturday Guardian for over thirteen years and is a regular contributor to the New York Times. His championing of vegetables, as well as ingredients once seen as 'exotic', has led to what some call 'The Ottolenghi effect'. This is shorthand for the creation of a meal which is full of colour, flavour, bounty and sunshine. Yotam lives in London with his family. www.ottolenghi.co.uk @Ottolenghi