Hi, I’m Ashley Palmer Watts. I’m co-founder and chef of the Devonshire in London.
In this sun-soaked beachside episode of The Secret List, we’re joined by Ashley Palmer-Watts, the celebrated chef who spent 20 years working alongside Heston Blumenthal before co-founding The Devonshire, London’s impossibly popular pub in Soho.
From his days as head chef at The Fat Duck to opening Dinner by Heston, Ashley has consistently pushed culinary boundaries. Now he’s channeling that innovation into everything from Artisan Coffee Co (making specialty coffee accessible at home) to his latest venture “Forgotten” – premium spirits crafted from citrus waste that would otherwise go to anaerobic digestion.
With characteristic warmth and wisdom, Ashley shares the secrets behind The Devonshire’s celebrity following (think Nigella dropping by for dinner and emergency breakfasts for Bon Jovi and Ed Sheeran), plus his refreshingly simple philosophy for discovering Cornwall’s hidden gems.
From the weekly table release frenzy every Thursday morning to his belief that AI can never replicate the emotive moments of great food and drink, Ashley’s insights blend high-end hospitality expertise with a genuine love for the spontaneous joy of aimless exploration – the perfect recipe for authentic Cornwall discoveries.
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I don’t think you need a lot of introductions, but some people might know a little bit about your history and some people might not. So, you’ve worked for and look after lots of interesting people, haven’t you?
Yes. So, I spent twenty years working with Heston Blumenthal in Bray. I was head chef at the Fat Duck for probably about eight years. And then I had opened a restaurant in London called Dinner by Heston. I spent twenty years working with the team at Bray.
And now onto different things.
Now you, by the sound of it, have quite a few little ventures and big ventures as it were. Pub, drinks, coffee.
Yes. I co founded Artisan Coffee Co. Making coffee accessible to people at home that is from a world of speciality, but using blending to make and create styles of coffee that people find really relatable and label them to take their next step to brewing a better coffee at home.
Your pub is quite hard to get into. Why is that? And what’s it all about?
Me and two other guys, we opened The Devonshire in Soho a year and a half ago. So Oisin Rogers, probably one of the country’s best publicans, thirty-five years running pubs. Pubs are quite a different thing than restaurants. Then also with Charlie Carroll, foodie, restaurateur, founder of Flatiron Restaurants. The three of us opened this pub.
It’s sort of British pub meets grill room, with big ember grill and butchery downstairs. We have a little bakery there. Make everything. Really good, tasty food and just a massive great building in London filled with art and creatives and music and great food.
So, quite an atmosphere. I hear you’ve got a bit of a celebrity following. A few interesting characters have come in. Anyone you can tell us about? Anyone interesting?
We get all sorts in really. To be honest, you never know who you’re going to be sat next to. Whether it’s Nigella; she pops in every now and again for dinner. I’ve met Bon Jovi in the morning. One morning when he came in for breakfast. We don’t do breakfast, but we were asked to do a breakfast for him and Ed Sheeran. Ed pops in quite a lot.
All sorts really. Lots of actors and up and coming musicians and artists. So, you get famous ones, but also the really up and coming ones.
What does someone need to do to get a table there? How do you get one? How much in advance do they need to plan?
It’s all online. Every Thursday morning at 10:30, we release all of the tables for a whole week in three weeks’ time. You just have to be ready, be quick. If you don’t get what you want, you can walk in. So, we take probably up to a 100 walk ins a day, I’d say.
Come in pre twelve, pre three o’clock, between three and five, and maybe eight thirty. And you might be lucky. You never know. Can’t take everybody, but we do try.
Brilliant. Well obviously, it’s in high demand.
While I was watching your presentation, I was quite jealous because you’re making a rather delicious looking spritz. What was going on there? Something new you’re working on and that’s out there now?
So, me and a couple of other guys, Ben and Simon, one has a cocktail factory which sounds like the dream really to me. We use all of the citrus that would have gone to anaerobic digestion. We use all the peels and we extract those in different methods. We extract botanicals and then we blend together two different products.
So, one is a an aperitivo. Like Aperol, but made with real ingredients, real acidity, real oils.
Then we have a high fidelity Triple Sec. Just like the ultimate version of Cointreau, made with today’s methodology, today’s technology and modern taste. Rather than something that’s been around made the same for a long, long time.
What’s it called?
So, it’s called Forgotten. We’re on Instagram called Drink Forgotten. We do have a website as well where you can buy the drinks. We’re in lots of different restaurants, hotels, bars.
Buy it for home. It’s lovely. Make a margarita with our high fidelity triple sec and it is just the ticket.
And that’s what we need right now. It’s so warm on the beach. We need a couple of Margaritas. Maybe someone will bring us one.
If you’re down here in Cornwall… obviously, you’re in London most of the time, but you’ve got Cornish roots. Where would you go for a drink with some friends and what comes to mind on that front?
Do you know what? I haven’t been down as much over the last few years, I am probably a bit out of touch with all the hidden gems, so I need to follow your guide. I always come down and like to go to Padstow. Doesn’t seem right not to go to Padstow.
I love the little pubs there as well. I always go to The Seafood. Go to Number Six, Rojano’s. Love Mariners at Rock or I’ll go and see what Nathan‘s doing at his place in Port Isaac. You can’t go wrong down here to be honest.
You can’t. The weather’s amazing today, so that makes all the all the places with the lovely vistas next level good. But in the winter, there are some fantastic places down here with a real atmosphere. The locals come out and you get a bit of colour, a bit of good chat. And everyone’s so approachable down here, aren’t they?
Yeah. I think it’s important that the local community support these places because it’s great to be busy in the summer when you get all the tourism and that’s all great. But during those winter months, it must be tough. So, to create places that people want to be and go and drink and chat and eat some food and just have a good time, I think there’s some great people down here operating some great places. So, they just need good support through the winter.
I think people forget. They think, the weather’s going to be grim, I won’t go out. But they forget that it’s a good excuse to go indoors, to spend the afternoon in a nice restaurant or pub, and just to relax and unwind and be forced to sit around and chat. And maybe you can’t go out and about so much. But it is quite a nice thing to do as well, isn’t it?
Yeah. I think it’s in our sort of modern day way that we go about our life, it’s on a screen, it’s on a computer, it’s on the phone. It’s very of the moment and connected to everything. But I think putting your phone in your pocket, you get back to what eating and drinking is about. And AI can’t replicate that.
It’s about emotive things that that you enjoy of the moment and we have plenty of other time to be tied to our phones and our computers. I’m the worst one for it. I’m always on mine. But when you’re in the right place with the right thing going on, you don’t even think about it.
So just come down, explore, find somewhere that looks interesting, and just take a bit of time there.
And to wrap up, we’ve been asking everyone for a top Cornish secret tip to finding new experiences. Anything that comes to mind?
Yeah. Personally, I love driving. It’s like one of my things that I love to do to relax and switch off. So, I love to just drive around aimlessly. I don’t really have a plan to be honest.
I just pick somewhere, and I drive to it and stop where I want to stop and maybe sit by the beach or on the rocks or cliff.
That’s a great tip actually. I’ve done that quite a few times in the past especially when I had young kids. My wife was working and I would just get in the car. She’d ring me in the morning, say, where are you going? I said, I don’t know.
We ended up in all sorts of interesting places. I just set off. I remember once I ended up at the horse races and I had no plans to do that. And I think just sometimes, don’t have a plan and let the adventure happen.
Yeah. If you’ve got the time just see where it takes you really. It’s like it used to be I suppose.
Fantastic. Thanks for your time.