I’m Lara Norman, a young passionate cook from Ibiza.
Ever since I could crawl my favourite place to be would always be the kitchen. I am grateful to have a job where I can make people happy through food and offer an escape from reality through the palette. Cooking is a never ending learning path and that is the beauty of it. It’s important that we learn from each other’s journeys and explore all the different culinary cultures. I believe that our mistakes are our biggest tools and learning from them is the only way to move forward in this magical culinary journey.
I started working professionally in a kitchen at the age of fifteen, working in different types of restaurants and bakeries. My first Michelin restaurant experience was working at The Ritz London, where I was honoured to join the John Williams brigade. It truly shaped me into a real cook. My next Michelin venture following this would be at Hide restaurant, and I am currently working at the two-Michelin star restaurant Bibendum by Claude Bosi.
Cooking Style
My cooking is very multicultural. I like to have fusion in my dishes and I don’t like limiting myself to one type of cuisine. I try to bring a lot of colour and height to my dishes, as you will be eating with the eyes too. And Nurture Folk definitely helps me with this! Their beautiful fresh and colourful herbs, flowers and cress completely enhance the dish and help make food become a work of art.
I tend to use a lot of pea shoots as I love the height and volume that they add to the plate. I also love Chive flowers for their sweet onion flavour and crunch. Garlic flowers are very aromatic and delicious. I love looking at Amaranth leaves and reminding myself of how beautiful nature is. The dried flower selection is perfect for shaping into pastas and I also love Nasturtium leaves – they’ve got a really nice hint of spice to them.
To connect with Lara Norman and see more of her work, check her out on Instagram, @cheflaranorman