Sat Bains is the chef-proprietor of Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms on the outskirts of Nottingham, which won the city’s first Michelin star in 2003.

Housed in a converted Victorian farmhouse, the 32-seat restaurant also holds four AA rosettes while the accommodation has a three-red-star rating from the AA.

Restaurant Sat Bains is renowned for its trademark tasting menus that include a degustation menu offering diners a taste of 12 different courses.

Bains, who was born to a Sikh family from the Punjab, was born in Normanton, Derby, where he completed his City and Guilds qualification. 

He got his first break after moving to Nottingham as head chef of Jesse’s restaurant. 

Sat Bains was chef de partie with the team that opened Raymond Blanc’s first Le Petit Blanc brasserie, in Oxford, in 1996. He then spent three months at London’s Michelin-starred L’Escargot restaurant before returning to Nottingham in 1997 as head chef of the Martins Arms in Colston Bassett.

It was while he was in his next role – as head (and only) chef of the 20-seat restaurant in Derby’s Ashbourne Gallery – that he entered the prestigious Roux Scholarship competition, winning through its early rounds and eventually carrying off the 1999 title at his very first attempt. By this time, however, he was unemployed as the Ashbourne Gallery had been forced to close.

However, Bains’ success in the scholarship won him the chance to work at the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Le Jardin des Sens in Montpelier France – and resulted in the invitation to become head chef at Nottingham’s Hotel des Clos (the forerunner to his current enterprise).

The hotel restaurant was relaunched in November 2002 under Bains’ own name and scooped a Michelin star the following year. However, 2003 ended with the hotel being put on the market for £1.1m.

Undaunted by the sale of the hotel in September 2004, Bains bought a 15-year lease on the restaurant, which he planned to reopen as a separate business by the end of the year after a £250,000 refurbishment.

However, when, in the spring of 2005, the chance to buy a 15-year-lease on the hotel as well Bains and his wife, Amanda, jumped at it and the restaurant became the current Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms. Their boldness was vindicated with the award of four AA rosettes in 2006 followed by the AA Best English Restaurant Award for 2006-2007.

Bains is one of just a handful of British chefs to have made the pilgrimage to the celebrated, three-Michelin-star El Bulli restaurant in Cala Montjoi, Spain.

He also won the opportunity to cook a starter of poached egg with air-dried ham and pea sorbet for the ambassador’ banquet in the BBC’s Great British Menu that was televised in spring 2007.

Awards
Roux Scholarship 1999
Catey Menu of the Year 2003
AA Best English Restaurant Award 2006-2007

Sat Bains articles on Caterersearch

Clos Encounters on CatererSearch >>

Sat Bains recipes on CatererSearch

Cèpes, by Sat Bains >>

Beetroot Carpaccio - by Sat Bains >>

Frozen Fennel Shavings - by Sat Bains >>

Sat Bains on the Web

BBC Sat Bains biography >>

Sat Bains on The Roux Scholarship >>

Sat Bains Great British Menu 2007 – the finals >>

Sat Bains Great British Menu 2007 – the results >>

Restaurant Sat Bains on the Web

Restaurant Sat Bains >>

Michelin restaurant entry >>

AA restaurant entry >>

AA hotel entry >>

The Guardian’s Matthew Norman reviews Sat Bains in Nottingham (2007) >>

Restaurant Sat Bains on Toptable  >>

Restaurant Sat Bains on Squaremeal  >>