Chef Theo Randall on 20 years of running his much-loved Mayfair restaurant

Words: Jonathan Whiley

George W Bush was in the White House, Tony Blair faced a leadership crisis and Chico's It's Chico Time knocked Madonna off the top spot in the UK singles chart. Amid the eclectic cultural and political melting pot that was 2006 also came the opening of a new Italian restaurant in Mayfair, which Jay Rayner hailed as the “best meal I have eaten all year” in a glowing review in The Guardian. There was special praise for the Amalfi lemon tart (still a staple), which Rayner said “was the best I have ever eaten”.

Two decades on and I'm sitting with the British chef-patron whose name still hangs proudly above the doors and whom Rayner described in that same review “as the most famous chef you have never heard of”. While Theo Randall's profile has since grown – he is a regular on the likes of Saturday Kitchen, has his own podcast (The Recipe) and several excellent cookbooks The Italian Table – you get the sense that he has never chased the limelight and is happiest when he's in the kitchen (which, it turns out, is often).

“I'm always here,” he tells me between lunch and dinner service at Theo Randall Cucina Italiana at the InterContinental Park Lane. “You might be doing something in the morning – TV stuff or writing a recipe book – but I'll be in the restaurant at lunchtime and then I'll go off and come back and do evening service. You just find time. I'll find myself coming in and I'm boning out guinea fowls and filleting the sea bass and making the stock. It's what I enjoy doing.”

You feel that in his company, too. He's a friendly, relaxed presence with a joyful love of food, who has you salivating when he describes a simple plate of pasta. His friend Jamie Oliver, whom Theo mentored during their time together at The River Cafe (Theo was head chef at the famed restaurant for 15 years) describes him as “the man who taught me to eat”.

Theo's latest recipe book, The Italian Table, is another irresistible homage to la dolce vita. It features a collection of 100 classic recipes, celebrating the spirit of Italy from Veneto 100 Classic Recipes Celebrating the Spirit of Italy to Sicily. “[It's] recipes I really love and that have inspired me,” he says. “There are some classics: spaghetti carbonara done the real way, amatriciana, which is one of my favourite pasta dishes. I wanted it to be real, authentic recipes so I had to be very strict on what I put in there.” He is particularly keen to write cookbooks with ingredients that are accessible – “if you can't get the ingredients in a supermarket such as Waitrose, don't put the recipe in” – and that are easy to navigate. As such, The Italian Table begins with antipasti and progresses through primi, secondi, contorni and dolci.

Theo says he learned the art of restraint from his parents; his dad was an architect and his mum an artist (and excellent cook). “The famous line by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is ‘less is more'. It was a designer thing. I've grown up with that and it says so much about so many different things. Overcomplicated food overcomplicates your palate. I think that is why I love Italian so much. You can go to Italy and have the most incredible pasta dish and it's three ingredients.”

Regional Italian cuisine takes centre stage at his Park Lane restaurant. Each month celebrates a different part of Italy, there is live jazz on Friday evenings and on Saturdays, an extravagant brunch offer. Being in the kitchen and coming up with ideas, he says, has been a key part of the restaurant's success.

“People come back every single month, they want to see what is different and you have to give people value for money. The regional menu is £85 and you get a good glass of prosecco when you arrive, then you probably get two generous glasses of white – depending on what the menu is – and a glass of red and four courses. People come in and they like that because they know that is what they are going to spend and they are taken on a journey.” Puglia remains a favourite region (Theo visits every summer), and he believes Veneto is the most underrated. “It's not put on a pedestal like Tuscany, but if you go to Verona, it's one of the most beautiful places with brilliant restaurants.

I would recommend it to anyone for a weekend.” Theo's career began at Chez Max in Surbiton, before he joined Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray at The River Cafe in 1989. “The spring had started and it was so exciting,” he recalls. “You would have a cold beer at the end of service sitting by the river. Then the next day there would be deliveries coming in and more and more interesting produce. It felt like home and it was the food I wanted to cook.”

He took a short sabbatical to cook alongside Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in California, before returning to The River Cafe where, with Theo as head chef, the restaurant won a Michelin star in 1997. “I had shares in the restaurant and everything I could possibly want, but it wasn't my restaurant and I wanted to move on and do my own thing.”

He spoke to the late Roy Ackerman – “a legend in the hospitality business” – who proposed a site on Park Lane, which was formerly Le Soufflé. “[It was] probably one of the most famous restaurants in London. We started talking and the general manager had been to The River Cafe a few times and I recognised him and they had looked me up and made me the offer.”

The rest, as they say, is history. During its first year the restaurant won Italian Restaurant of the Year in the Carlton London Restaurant Awards, and the place was packed. “We were doing 240 covers on a Saturday night – it was just non-stop and intense. There was a real high point between 1995 and 2008 where restaurants in London were absolutely rammed and everyone would spend lots of money and it was an amazing time.”

He still beams at having a restaurant in Mayfair. “T've always loved Mayfair. When we played Monopoly, Mayfair and Park Lane were the two I wanted, so I was destined to have a restaurant here. It's such a special place with so much history.”

Is he able to switch off? He says even when he's on holiday he will spend “about two hours a day writing out recipes or thinking of things”.”I'll read a book, but the book will be about the food. People say: ‘Don't you get bored?' No, I don't. You live and breathe it.”

Jack Stein will join Theo on October 15 as part of a series of 20th anniversary dinners.

Visit theorandall.com/whats-on