Tom Parker Bowles

Tom Parker Bowles
Parker Bowles at the 2014 Web Summit
Born	Thomas Henry Charles Parker Bowles (1974-12-18) 18 December 1974 London, England
Occupation	Food writer[1] and critic[2]
Spouse(s)	Sara Buys (m. 2005)
Children	2
Parent(s)	Andrew Parker Bowles Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Relatives	Laura Lopes (sister) Ann de Trafford (paternal grandmother) Bruce Shand (maternal grandfather) Rosalind Maud Cubitt (maternal grandmother) Annabel Shand (maternal aunt) Mark Shand (maternal uncle) Derek Paravicini (cousin) Ben Elliot (cousin) Emma Parker Bowles (cousin)

Thomas Henry Charles Parker Bowles (/boʊlz/; born 18 December 1974)^[3] is a British food writer and food critic. Parker Bowles is the author of five cookbooks and in 2010 won the Guild of Food Writers 2010 award for his writings on British food. He is known for his appearances as a judge in numerous television food series and for his reviews of restaurant meals around the UK and overseas for GQ, Esquire, and The Mail on Sunday.

Parker Bowles is the son of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Andrew Parker Bowles. His stepfather and godfather is Charles, Prince of Wales. He has one younger sister, Laura Lopes.

Early life and education

Tom Parker Bowles grew up at Bolehyde Manor in Allington, Wiltshire, and later Middlewick House in Corsham, Wiltshire.^[4] He and his sister Laura were raised as Roman Catholics.^[5] Both their father and their paternal grandmother, the late Dame Ann Parker Bowles, were Catholic. Like his father, he is in the line of succession to the Earldom of Macclesfield.^[6]

Parker Bowles was educated at Summer Fields prep school in Oxford.^[7] In the 1980s, he and his sister attended Heywood Preparatory School in Corsham.^[8] He later attended Eton College and Worcester College, Oxford, where he was a member of the Piers Gaveston Society.^[9] Parker Bowles states that immediately after leaving school, he fell in love with food writing and cites his mother's cooking skills and recipes inspired him to become a food writer.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Career

From 1997 until 2000, Parker Bowles was a junior publicist for Dennis Davidson Associates public relations firm.^[14] In 2001, he worked for Quintessentially Group, a high end concierge service, which his cousin Ben Elliot co-founded and the same year became Tatler's food columnist.^[15][16] From 2002 to date he has been a food critic and broadcaster with a weekly column in The Mail on Sunday.^[17] He has recently moved from being a Contributing Editor at GQ to being a Food Editor at Esquire magazine.^[18] He is also an Editor at Large of food magazine Four and luxury magazine Pomp.^[19][20]

From 2007 to 2010 he co-presented Market Kitchen on Good Food Channel and presented LBC Radio's Food and Drink Programme for a year.^[21] He was the food curator of Heckfield Place when it underwent renovations from 2011 until 2013.^[22] He was a judge on the ITV Food series Food Glorious Food,^[23] Channel nine Australian cooking series The Hot Plate^[24] and is often a judge for numerous food competitions and events.^[25][26][27]

As a restaurant critic, he has reviewed numerous restaurants around the world including Chiltern Firehouse, The Palm, and Le Champignon Sauvage. In 2014, he was named as one of the Top 10 most followed UK restaurant critics on Twitter^[28] and was awarded a Restaurant Reviewer of the Year Award by the Guild of Food Writers for work published in The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine.^[29]

Cookbooks

Parker Bowles first book, published in 2004, was E Is For Eating – An Alphabet of Greed.^[30] His next, The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes, was published by Ebury in 2007.^[31] AbeBooks named the book as one of The 50 Best Food Memoirs.^[32] His third, Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food was published in 2009^[33] and won the Guild of Food Writers 2010 award for best work on British food.^[34] His next book, Let's Eat: Recipes From My Kitchen Notebook, is a compendium of his favourite recipes from his childhood, collected from around the world, and written with the amateur cook in mind. The book was published by St. Martin's Press and was released in 2012.^[13][35] In October 2014, he launched his fifth book titled Let's Eat Meat: Recipes for Prime Cuts, Cheap Bits and Glorious Scraps of Meat,^[36][37] which was published by Pavilion.^[38]

Business ventures

In November 2011, Parker Bowles, along with food writer Matthew Fort and Baron Rupert Ponsonby launched a pork scratchings snack named Mr Trotter's Great British Pork Crackling.^[39] Due to good reviews and successful sales of the snack,^[40][41][42] they launched a beer brand in 2013 named Mr Trotter’s Chestnut Ale, which was produced in partnership with The Lancaster Brewing Company and is considered to be the first chestnut beer made in the UK.^[41][43] Mr. Trotter's has since began expanding, creating different type of products.^[44]

In April 2013, he became a director of Green’s Restaurant and Oyster Bar in London,^[45] which was founded in 1982 by his uncle Simon Parker Bowles.^[46]

Personal life

On 10 September 2005, after five years of dating, Parker Bowles married Sara Buys, a fashion editor at Harpers & Queen magazine.^[47] The wedding took place at St. Nicholas' Anglican Church in Rotherfield Greys, Oxfordshire.^[3][48] His cousin Ben was his best man.^[49] The couple have two children: daughter Lola (born 9 October 2007) and son Freddy (born 28 February 2010).^[50]

Parker Bowles is a patron of Malton Food Lover Festival, which holds food celebrations and competitions annually in Yorkshire, England.^[51] He and his wife are both patrons of Tommy's, a charity based in London which raises awareness to prevent pregnancy problems.^[52] Parker Bowles is also a strong advocate for having cookery classes in schools and in 2013 help launch the Sacla Student Cookery School, founded by Saclà Italia food company, which will teach pupils ways to cook and eat healthily.^[10][53]

Publications

• E is for Eating: An Alphabet of Greed. (2004). Long Barn Books. ISBN 978-1902421100
• The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes (2007). Ebury. ISBN 978-0091904913
• Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food. (2009). Ebury. ISBN 978-0091926687
• Let's Eat: Recipes from My Kitchen Notebook. (2012). St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1250014337
• Let's Eat Meat: Recipes for Prime Cuts, Cheap Bits and Glorious Scraps of Meat. (2014). Pavilion. ISBN 978-1909108318

Ancestry

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tom Parker Bowles.

• Tom Parker Bowles at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Parker Bowles on Twitter

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall Titles Duchess of Cornwall Duchess of Rothesay Countess of Chester Countess of Carrick Baroness of Renfrew Lady of the Isles Princess of Scotland Family Andrew Parker Bowles (first husband) Tom Parker Bowles (son) Laura Lopes (daughter) Charles, Prince of Wales (second husband) Bruce Shand (father) Rosalind Shand (mother) Annabel Elliot (sister) Mark Shand (brother) Extended family Philip Morton Shand (paternal grandfather) Edith Marguerite Harrington (paternal grandmother) Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe (maternal grandfather) Sonia Keppel (maternal grandmother) Henry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe (maternal uncle) Elspeth Howe, Baroness Howe of Idlicote (paternal aunt) Godchildren Life events First marriage Relationship with the Prince of Wales Camillagate scandal Second marriage (wedding, wedding dress) Charities National Osteoporosis Society National Literacy Trust Brooke Hospital for Animals Emmaus UK St Catherine's School, Bramley JDRF Trinity Hospice Women of the World Festival (WOW) Awards and recognition Ethel LeFrak Award Kohn Award The Duchess of Cornwall Award Duchess of Cornwall Centre for Osteoporosis Rosa 'Duchess of Cornwall' Commons Wikiquote