Andreas Antona

Andreas Antona is an English chef and restaurateur. Now the Chef-Patron of Simpsons, one of Birmingham's four Michelin starred restaurants, he was a mentor to several other successful Birmingham chefs early in their careers, including Glynn Purnell, Luke Tipping and Andy Waters, and has been described in The Times as "the godfather of modern Birmingham food". Antona was born in Cuckfield, West Sussex to a Greek Cypriot family, and was brought up in Chiswick, London. He trained initially at Ealing Technical College, after which he spent six years working in hotels in Germany and Switzerland before working under Anton Mosimann at The Dorchester and at the Ritz Hotel. From 1987 he spent three years as Head Chef at Birmingham's Plough and Harrow Hotel, at a time when its restaurant was among the finest in the Midlands. Antona opened Simpsons in Kenilworth, Warwickshire in September 1993, the restaurant's name being taken from that of the chemists shop owned by his father-in-law that used to occupy the property.