From an impoverished childhood in Sri Lanka, chef Larry Jayasekara has completed an extraordinary journey to running The Cocochine in Mayfair, where guests feast on immaculately prepared European cuisine accented with South Asian flavourings. HARDEN’S caught up with him at the restaurant as its second anniversary approaches this month.
Larry grew up in a small village with a surf beach in Sri Lanka, which may sound like an idyllic childhood. It wasn’t.
“My father was an alcoholic,” he recalls. “I never went to school, and some days there was no food at all. When I arrived in England as a teenager I couldn’t read or write. But I managed to get a job in a pie restaurant in Torquay.”
Soon enough, his potential and work ethic were recognised and he was advised to study cooking properly. Enrolled at South Devon College, he had to dictate his written homework to his then wife because he did not know how to write – and he topped the class.
“My ex-wife gave me a new life through education.”
His ambition piqued by watching Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ on television, Larry managed to snag a trial at Ramsay’s restaurant at the Connaught in London, then run by Angela Hartnett.
“My head was spinning – I had never even seen white asparagus before! Angela took me aside, told me to get some more experience and come back in 12 to 18 months. So I returned to the Grand Hotel in Torquay.”
There followed an intense culinary education under a succession of top chefs: Marcus Wareing at Pétrus, Alain Roux at The Waterside Inn, Michel Bras in France, Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.
“ I was working 90-100 hours a week. Whatever I put my heart into, I don’t give up until I have got somewhere. I believe there are three components you need for success: commitment, loyalty and honesty. You can learn skillset.”
His career prospered, and Larry won the Craft Guild of Chefs’ Chef of the Year crown in 2016 for his work as head chef back at Pétrus. And when Covid closed hospitality down in 2020, he responded in the only way he knew how.
“I cooked 1,500 meals a day for doctors and nurses at UCL Hospital in Euston, getting up at 4am to mash potatoes for the fresh shepherd’s pie. It’s what I could do to repay the medical staff for all their efforts.”
Larry has also participated in Cook for Ukraine and cooked fundraising meals at his son’s schools, and his voluntary work during Covid earned him a special award in the 2021 Fortnum & Mason food awards. It also brought him into contact with one of the partners later involved in creating The Cocochine.
“It was karma. He became my principal backer.”
The Cocochine occupies four floors – basement wine cellar, ground-floor restaurant, first-floor kitchen with dining counter and top-floor private dining suite (pictured) – of a lavishly kitted-out mews house off Berkeley Square. It is crammed with original works of art – much of it belonging to Larry’s consortium of backers, who also provide access to unique produce for the kitchen.
“We’re lucky to have a group of very supportive backers, who give us a platform to create something different. Through the main partner we have access to fish and seafood from Tanera Island in Scotland and livestock and produce from Rowler Farm in Northamptonshire.
“Tanera [largest of the Summer Isles in the Inner Hebrides] had a herring processing industry in the past, and we now get 25% of the catch from five local fishermen who fish sustainably – if a lobster isn’t at least 15cm long we don’t take it, and our scallops are extra large. No other restaurant has access to this seafood. This gives us a unique supply – and I would never serve a farmed fish.
“At Rowler Farm, the partner very generously allows us to grow all the ingredients we need, so we’re in complete control of what we serve to our guests. We use regenerative farming methods, so we know that every guest who comes through the door is eating something healthy.
“This is important to me – so many people now have life-threatening illnesses. And of course there’s also the taste: vegetables and fruit that have been injected with chemicals or waxed so they last a few weeks longer on the supermarket shelf lose a lot of their flavour.
“At the farm we have eight acres devoted to growing food for the animals, including Angus cattle. We grow wheat, oats and barley to make our own bread, and have hives in three different areas, each providing honey with a different flavour.
“We make pesto from the carrot tops; I don’t peel our carrots because they’re so sweet, they need the bitterness of the skin to balance the flavour. We have elderberries, fresh walnuts – even rocket flowers, which I had never seen before. They only last one day once they’re picked, but they’re delicious. We do a salad with 90 ingredients – nine oh – from May to October. You can’t get any better!
“We also collect from the wild: blackberries, rosehips, hibiscus and meadowsweet, which has just a two-week season. We respect natural rhythms, which means no apricots this year after a bumper crop last year – apricots only crop every two years.
“We have three greenhouses at Rowler, and because we don’t use chemicals the team are removing slugs all day long, which is a massive task. Without the team at Rowler – Justin the estate manager, Ben, Robin the head gardener – we wouldn’t be able to run the restaurant. Their work is what gives our food its soul and makes it meaningful: harmony comes with the produce more than from human technique, while we in the kitchen are just doing the final bit.
“I go up to Rowler every Saturday night and pick with my own hands on Sundays. My day off is the farm. I love it there: the animals, the fruits and vegetables are beautiful, and I drink water from a natural spring. People say I have no social life, but that is my social life!
“So what we cook in the kitchen here is driven from what is growing at Rowler – I don’t have anybody telling me what to cook. We’re just adding the final 10% to this wonderful produce.”
Larry makes sure that the same care and attention that he finds on the farm is reflected in his kitchen at The Cocochine.
“Everybody loves their mother’s cooking – why? Because a mother cooks with love and care, and you can really taste that.
“We want every guest who eats here to get that feeling of coming home. If you invite people into your home, you don’t give them a time-limit. That’s why we don’t turn our tables; our guests are here for the whole lunch or dinner.
“We’re very lucky. We are not here to change the world, but we can control what happens within our four walls.”
