Chef Stuart Waterston

In ten years I went from flipping burgers to a 3 AA rosettes head chef. I achieved this by always wanting to make a forward step with my cooking and my personal development.

I started in Hard rock café, working on all stations within a very fast paced line kitchen.

From there I had the bug and wanted to learn to cook properly and push myself. I worked at Dakota South Queensferry next where everything was made fresh daily, serving up to 200 covers a day.

Next up, I made the move to Aizle in Edinburgh. I knew it was a forward step but I count myself very lucky to have worked with Stuart in his first restaurant. Aizle was the highest standard fine dining and taught me a lot about attention to detail and the level of focus required to achieve success on a every service.

After Aizle I moved to the borders with my young family. I was sous chef at Osso in Peebles and later headed up Laurel bank within the same company. In this role I learned how to be flexible with menus and dish creation as the menu was extensive to cater to a large demographic within a small town.

I left Osso to be, at the start, sole chef at Windlestraw. Windlestraw was a challenging environment where the menu had to change as often as the customers stayed, sometimes 7 days a week. This would require me to produce a high number of different seasonal dishes, canapes and petit fours to exacting standards.

Currently I work with a local game dealer to produce new product lines while cooking at private functions and my own pop up restaurants. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss specific menus and larger groups [email protected].