Chef, cook school owner and food campaigner, Nick Nairn is in high demand for his cooking skills, as a food consultant, TV presenter and personality and also as a prominent spokesperson on diet and Scottish produce. He uses his integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and talents to spread the word about Scotland‘s wonderful natural larder and in helping people cook and eat better.
Nick owns, teaches at and bases his business at, the acclaimed Nick Nairn Cook School on the beautiful shores of the Lake of Menteith, where he grew up. He also runs an urban Cook School and Cook Shop in Aberdeen.
Through Nick Nairn Consulting, Nick produces a successful food range of cereals, bread, biscuits, oatcakes, haggis and black pudding, available in various Scottish supermarkets. The business also operates The Kailyard restaurant at the Doubletree by Hilton, Dunblane Hydro, plus Native restaurant in Aberdeen‘s Hilton Garden Inn.
Nick has published ten cookery books with sales well in excess of 500,000 copies. He appears regularly on The One Show, and is a regular on Saturday Kitchen. He became a household name appearing on Ready Steady Cook. The TV series Paul & Nick‘s Big Food Trip, with fellow chef and friend Paul Rankin, was highly successful and his other BBC television series include Wild Harvest, Wild Harvest 2, and Island Harvest, as well as Nick Nairn and The Dinner Ladies, which won a Glenfiddich Award. He has represented Scotland in the finals of Great British Menu, winning the opportunity to cook Scottish venison for the Queen‘s 80th birthday banquet.
In 2007 Stirling University recognised Nick‘s contributions to Scottish cuisine and his work in promoting healthy eating and awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Nick started his working life travelling the oceans in the Merchant Navy and relished sampling street food all over the world. Returning home to Scotland he tried cooking some of the dishes he‘d tasted and found an untapped talent. He taught himself the skills that led to becoming Scotland‘s youngest Michelin-starred chef in 1991 at his first restaurant, Braeval, in the Trossachs. He went on to open Nairns restaurant in Glasgow in 1997 to international acclaim.
In 2012, Nick set up The Menteith Group, a campaigning group of food providers, farmers, chefs and others dedicated to improving school meals and food education in Scotland. This has since produced The Scottish Food Family, with the same aims but inviting the general population to be a part of the group.