Industry News Premier Hospitality

Canaletto Provides Backdrop for Morrison’s Chefs Legacy Project

Canaletto Provides Backdrop for Morrison’s Chefs Legacy Project
Written by Amy

The restaurant space at the award-winning Canaletto tower on London’s City Road is taking centre stage in a special photographic project celebrating some of the most prominent chefs in the United Kingdom.

Renowned photographer Alistair Morrison will be using the proposed Canaletto restaurant space as his studio to photograph 18 culinary legends including Raymond Blanc, Tom Kerridge, Sat Bains, Marcus Wareing and Angela Hartnett. Canaletto is a residential tower designed by the international architectural practice UNStudio in Amsterdam.

Over the past 40 years, Morrison has photographed some of the most notable international cultural icons and dignitaries with over 80 pieces of his work acquired by the National Portrait Gallery.

Canaletto London is currently hosting a number of his extraordinary photographs including:

  • The Actors’ Last Supper, which was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery for 18 months. The photograph features 13 of the most recognisable British actors, recreating the immortal scene of Da Vinci’s Last Supper
  • The Adoration Trilogy: Searching for Apollo, a unique legacy photograph featuring over 70 of the most iconic music legends of the past five decades, which was unveiled at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2017.
  • Immune from Praise and Abuse Collection, with influences that include Lucien Freud and Egon Schiele, Morrison captures the raw and real elements of those he selects to sit for him. The result is an arresting series of artworks that contain a visceral energy which evokes the broad brushstrokes and considered palette of a painter

Morrison is now creating a similar tableau involving chefs as part of his Legacy series. The overall concept is designed to celebrate a central part of contemporary British culture and an industry that does not always get the credit that it deserves.

Collaborating with Matthew Fort, the author and former food columnist for the Guardian and judge on the Great British Menu, Morrison has curated a group of 17 prominent chefs to take part in the project, namely:

  • Raymond Blanc, OBE: Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons
  • Sat Bains: Restaurant Sat Bains
  • Nathan Outlaw: Restaurant Nathan Law
  • Angela Hartnett: Café Murano
  • Clare Smyth: Core By Clare Smyth
  • Mark Hix: Hix Restaurants
  • Claude Bosi: Bibendum
  • Jason Atherton: Pollen Street Social; The Clock Tower at The Edition
  • Marcus Wareing: Marcus
  • Tom Kerridge: The Hand and Flower Pub
  • Rowley Leigh: Formerly Parabola
  • Sally Clarke: Clarke’s
  • Phil Howard: Elystan Street
  • Simon Rogan: L’Enclume, Rogan&Co, Roganic, Aulis at L’Enclume, Aulis London, Our Farm
  • Lisa Goodwin-Allen: Northcote restaurant
  • Ollie Dabbous: Hyde at 85 Piccadilly
  • Fergus Henderson: St John

Working alongside the great British institution Fortnum and Mason, each chef will curate their own picnic hamper which will be auctioned in aid of The Felix Project, an organisation that delivers unused, overstocked and unsold fresh food to charities and schools around the country.

 The Chefs Legacy Photograph will be unveiled at Fortnum and Mason in January 2019.

 “This is an exciting project which celebrates a largely unsung group of individuals and has allowed us to photograph them in what is a very interesting space—the Canaletto restaurant. The project has truly highlighted the potential of the space and we hope the resulting images and the auction will help to raise funds for a very worthwhile charity,” Alistair Morrison said.

About the author

Amy