Who is Olli?
Born in Yorkshire, Olli’s love of cooking started in his early childhood kitchen where he showed great curiosity and enthusiasm especially in copying his Grandmothers cooking techniques. Olli joined an award winning gastro pub team aged 15 then headed to London aged 19 and joined the brigade at Claridges.
An exciting and demanding start to a career which saw Olli working as Senior Sous with Gordon Ramsay and Head Chef with Tom Aikens. During this period Olli also appeared on national television as a finalist in both the Roux Scholarship 2013 and MasterChef the Professionals 2011.
Olli returned to his Yorkshire roots in 2017 launching his company Olli Cooks. Today you’ll find him growing vegetables in his kitchen garden and foraging fresh ingredients to incorporate in his recipes. Olli’s joy of quality cooking and great company make him the secret ingredient for celebrations, dinner parties and tuition your home!"
Olli Cooks provides bespoke event catering and private dinner parties. Breaking away from the stale industry template, Olli has no set menus and instead builds bespoke menus directly with every client.
What Olli wants to do...
After 2 years of building my business, I want to expand and be able to improve my offering. The two areas I want to focus on are a street food style van for events and a masterclass tuition based service.
Food Truck
The street food truck I have being using allows me to offer any street food based on the clients tastes. I have only being able to rent the truck so far and an opportunity has arisen to purchase the vehicle. The costs of hiring are high and so make for lower profits. These lower profits have meant I have never being able to purchase a food truck of my own. Changing that would mean with access to a truck I could do more pop up events and help grow my name and business in the North Yorkshire area.
I would invest the money directly into the purchase of the vehicle plus the addition of a "clip in/ clip out" oven so cooking would become possible on the move. I have already drawn up plans with a local fabricator and he has agreed to commence building once I have the funds in place. His turn around time would be 3 weeks which would mean the truck would be almost instantly up in use.
Masterclasses
My involvement in the "demo" scene in North Yorkshire has increased massively over the last 2 years. I have really taken to doing them and along with my past experiences of conducting "Chef Tables" in the kitchen of the Savoy Grill in London I have developed a real passion for teaching, inspiring and passing on my knowledge. I would like to use some of the investment to set up a masterclass service. I have already completed two that have acted as testers. They involve me coming home and setting up a station for up to 8 of your guests. I then talk and explain through a small cookery course (from 3 course meal, canape selection, dessert class etc). We all cook together and ask questions and at the end we sit down and eat the dishes and ask anymore questions. Courses can last from 1-3 hours and make for great evenings with friends or family. Courses can be tailored from novice to more advance.
I would invest the money into a range of equipment from chopping boards to crockery so I have enough identical equipment to set up these lessons to look both professional and organised.
Why Crowdfund?
I already have provisional event bookings, recipes, training, and a brand - but I am missing the ingredients to take my efforts to the next level. Your pledge will help me reach my goal: Getting up and running for the summer events season!
You can also follow my progress and ask me questions on Instagram or my website.