Profile picture for user Neil Rankin
Neil Rankin
Chef and Food Author

A physics graduate and ex sandwich entrepreneur Neil began his career cooking late in life. At the start of his career he trained exclusively in French food in restaurants including the award-winning French Table in Surbiton before retraining at Gordon Ramsey’s Tante Marie cordon bleu cooking school. He then went on to work for the likes of Nuno Mendes during his own loft supper clubs and then moved to Pennyhill Park in Surrey to train under 2-star Michael Wignal. From there he went on to do a number of Michelin stages before ending up at Rhodes 24 in the city.

Neil's latest venture is Symplicity foods. He has spent 2 years working on the secret ingredients for unique plant-based meat and cheese products, which are now being supplied nation wide to restaurants such as Dishoom, Soho house, Gordon Ramsey, bleeker burger, homeslice pizza and many more. Neil has also collaborated with one of the worlds best known and most respected burger chains to produce a new burger just for them. 

Neil was previously Chef Director and is still a Director of the temper group of restaurants in London. temper has three sites that feature open kitchen grills with live fire cooking serving plenty of meat & cocktails! 

Neil started his career in fine dining but moved to cooking BBQ food after a stint at Barbacoa with acclaimed US BBQ chef Adam perry lang. He went on to open and be head chef for the original Pitt Cue in Soho which was one of London’s most successful restaurant openings, won numerous accolades and had famous queues stretching round the block. 

Neil moved on to head up the highly acclaimed John Salt in Islington and the Smokehouse which was the UK’s only real wood BBQ restaurant. Smokehouse received unanimous critical acclaim and went on to open a second site in Chiswick. Neil also opened and managed Bad Egg in the city which was an all-day diner that showcased a lot of Neil's passions including Korean and BBQ food.

Neil competed in the 9th series of BBC2′s Great British Menu, the brief was to create a menu to honour the men and women involved in the DDay landings. Neil competed for the Scottish region, battling it out against two other Scottish chefs.
Neil's book, Low and Slow was published by Ebury Books in 2016, it has been really well received and hit the bestsellers lists. 

In partnership with Napoleon, Neil has created some exclusive new barbecue recipes and will be appearing as our guest chef on the Napoleon Grills Kitchen Stage at CarFest North and South 2021.