Massimo Bottura serves first lunch at community kitchen

Three Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura today cooked the first lunch at a community kitchen for homeless and vulnerable Londoners that uses almost exclusively surplus food.

The Italian is the first in a stellar line- up of culinary giants — with more than 40 Michelin stars between them — who will cook with “waste” ingredients from stores and markets at the kitchen at St Cuthbert’s Centre in Earl’s Court.

The chefs will take a delivery from a van provided by The Felix Project charity at about 8.30am each day, not knowing what has been collected during its round of visits. They plan to serve more than 2,000 lunches a day at the centre, which has been named Refettorio Felix in honour of Felix Byam Shaw, the inspiration for the charity.

Mr Bottura, whose non-profit organisation Food for Soul is running the kitchen, said: “For us as chefs this is a cultural project to show that what people think of as waste is not, it is just a different aspect of food. We can also transfer our knowledge to all the volunteers and teach them the new techniques as well as feed the needy.”

The renovation of St Cuthbert’s was planned by Charles Wainwright, of Dust Architecture, and overseen by the Bermondsey-based design practice Studioilse headed by Ilse Crawford.

The project, a key element of London Food Month, is being supported by Westfield, which runs the retail, dining and leisure destinations at White City and Stratford. About 50 volunteers from Westfield helped set up the dining room. Westfield’s chief marketing officer, Myf Ryan, said: “Although financial donations are of huge importance, we are really pleased to have been able to offer our people and teams to get involved in the refurbishment itself as well as through volunteering.”