Edinburgh restaurateur and superstar chef Jimmy Lee wins prestigious meals award

Movie star chef Jimmy Lee is celebrating after successful a prestigious prize on the UK Restaurant Awards.

Lee’s Salt and Chilli Oriental model – which has branches at Edinburgh’s St James Quarter and in Glasgow – was named ‘One to Watch’ at this 12 months’s R200 Awards.

The annual awards, organised by Restaurant Journal and held in Manchester, recognise excellence within the multi-site restaurant house as voted for by business friends.

Salt and Chilli Oriental was the one enterprise from Scotland to win a prize on Tuesday evening (November 15), with different class winners together with Pizza Pilgrims, Nandos, and Dishoom.

The grab-and-go enterprise, a mash-up of East and West, outdated and new, and salt and chilli, presents a style of Hong Kong’s no-frills avenue meals.

Talking about his award, Lee mentioned: “I’m completely thrilled to win this award. This award belongs to each member of my workforce.

“Each day, an unbelievable quantity of exhausting work goes into making the most effective tasting Cantonese meals in Scotland, and it’s unbelievable that our achievements have been recognised on the highest stage by my restaurant friends.

Just a few months again, Lee opened a brand new pan-Asian restaurant, additionally in St James Quarter – the fabulously-named Leith Woks.

The restaurant, housed inside Bonnie & Wild’s Scottish Market, is described as ‘a wok-based avenue meals restaurant with a cultural twist’.

Lee appeared on the BBC’s Nice British Menu, and was additionally a choose alongside Prue Leith on Channel 4’s My Kitchen Guidelines.

He additionally appeared with Kirstie Allsopp on Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas, in addition to presenting his standard STV cookery sequence, Julie and Jimmy’s Scorching Woks.