It’s double helpings of Aikens as twin chefs Tom and Robert cook up a culinary collaboration

 
3 February 2014

They grew up together, learned how to cook side by side and long dreamed of running a restaurant as partners. That dream ended in tears two decades ago, but now the Aikens twins are finally burying the Sabatier.

The Standard can reveal that the 43-year-old brothers — Michelin-starred celebrity chef Tom and US gastropub pioneer Robert — are drawing up plans for a string of joint ventures that will seal their reputation as the world’s foremost culinary twins.

They have not worked together as equals since a traumatic parting of the ways a few years after learning their trade as catering students at Norwich City College.

The identical twins had hoped to launch a restaurant in London, but in Christmas 1993 Robert flew to Paris to tell Tom — then working at Joel Robuchon’s flagship restaurant — that he was taking up a job in America instead.

Tom, the younger twin by five minutes, said: “My whole dream was opening a restaurant in London by the time we were 26 or 27 and I pinned my whole career on us doing something together.

“So when he initially told me he was buggering off to America and not interested in doing anything with me for the foreseeable future, I was very, very upset, I was distraught.

“He came over with my parents to Paris and told me face to face — I actually burst into tears. I was the youngest, so it was kind of the ‘bigger brother’ thing. I had set my heart and soul on doing things together and that wasn’t to be. So I said, ‘Fine, you do your thing and I’ll do my thing and we’ll see what happens’.”

The split ended a vision that began when the family stopped at a French hotel on their way home from a skiing holiday when they were eight or nine.

The boys ordered “melting in the mouth” fillet steak and chips cooked in beef fat, followed by a “beautiful vanilla pudding” that left a deep impression and inspired them to take up cookery classes at school.

Though still close, the pair have not collaborated on a major project since their Paris showdown, apart from a brief spell when Robert helped set up the first of the Tom’s Kitchen brasseries in London. Robert, now head chef at the Peacock restaurant at the William hotel in New York’s Midtown, said the moment of their parting still “sticks in my mind like it was yesterday”.

“I said, ‘Look, I don’t think I’m coming back any time soon.’ It was very upsetting for me, very upsetting for him. Ever since we’ve been kids we had seen ourselves working together, I felt totally gutted.”

Their first major culinary joint venture came at the age of 10 when they decided to make a wedding anniversary cake for their parents.

Robert said: “They were away and we spent two days making that cake — we covered it in Smarties. Not one of our greatest cooking successes, but very much appreciated.”

Now they hope to cook up a new collaboration. The business plans are still at an early stage but will involve launching mid-market restaurants on the east coast of America. Robert said: “We’ve always spoken about it. If we can make it work it would be wonderful.”

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