Paul Foster

Paul’s love of food started at a young age, growing up in his parents pub where he began helping out in the kitchen, washing up and prepping vegetables. He soon swiftly moved onto trying his hand at baking and selling cakes to the bouncers and thus an interest for baking and pastry was sparked. 

He soon fled the nest and continued his journey in the food industry to work under a variety of renowned chefs. His first position was working with classically trained Paul Hartup where he began to learn the fundamental techniques of classic cookery. 

Paul was awarded with the William Heptinstall Award that gave him a scholarship to develop his culinary skills in France and America. This included a week in 3 Michelin starred L’Auberge de I’lle in Lyon. He certainly proved what he was capable of as he was given the responsibility of controlling the pass by the end of his stint. For the second leg of his trip, he worked at wd-50 in New York where he was shown how cooking meets molecular gastronomy. He then finished the trip with six weeks at The French Laundry in California where he observed their sustainable approach to cooking, sourcing ingredients from their farm and developing a daily menu based on the produce. 

One of the most influential parts of Paul’s experience was spending a year at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons where he was able to get experience in several different sections within the Oxfordshire kitchen, most notably, a stint working under Benoit Blin in pastry. But his first head chef role was in 2010 at Tuddenham Mill in Suffolk. It was here that Paul earnt the restaurant 3 AA rosettes as well as winning the Observer Food Monthly young chef of the year and making several TV appearances. 

In 2016 Paul decided to leave his current head chef position and start a crowdfunding campaign to enable him to start his own Restaurant. He created a relaxed fine dining restaurant, Salt, which was awarded a Michelin Star in 2019. The menu showcases Paul’s cooking style, focussing on flavour and the season’s freshest ingredients, along with ensuring that meat eaters and vegetarians alike are catered for. Salt is known for delicious dishes with the best of British ingredients including Cornish Cod, Cotswold Lamb and Yorkshire Grouse - certainly worth a visit! 

Paul kicked off his first Banquist experience with a menu of: confit roscoff onion, beer pickle, whipped goats curd, followed by a amina of hand-rolled truffle gnocchi, parsnip puree and confit sprouts and then finishing with a Turnworth cheesecake, shortbread crumb and quine puree. 

His menu showcased the best of British vegetables and produce, with flavour at the heart of the dishes to create a fine dining experience that you can make at home. 

Following this, Paul launched our EPIC kids course with us. A 4-week experience showing children how to cook fun and flavoursome meals. This included recipes such as pizza, tacos and katsu curry. The course was an amazing opportunity for Banquist to dip their toe into helping educate the nation's budding chefs with some michelin-starred knowledge. 

Most recently we have launched sweet and savoury courses with Paul, again 4 week courses getting progressively harder week by week to help kids transform into star bakers with some epic chef’s tips that Paul has acquired throughout his incredible career.