Glynn Purnell

Glynn Purnell

Glynn Purnell owns and runs Purnell’s in Birmingham and was referred to as a Yummy Brummie by Olive Magazine. Winning dozens of awards for his inspired, adventurous cooking, he has remained firmly rooted in his home city with a passion to win the city’s first Michelin star, which he achieved in January 2005 as Head Chef at Jessica’s.

Glynn’s first food memory involved baked beans on toast and curry powder ! Left in charge of his little brother and sister, he would experiment on his siblings with new combinations and challenging their taste buds, and he continues to do this with dishes like Poached egg yolk, smoked haddock milk foam and cornflakes on the menu at Purnell’s and which earned him top accolades on Great British Menu. Glynn takes old fashioned flavours and brings them bang up to date with other dishes like Royal of Goats Cheese and pineapple on sticks.

At  14, he requested a stint in a kitchen for his work experience and spent the next two years heading to the Metropole Hotel  after school to continue his experience. On leaving school, they took him on as an apprentice and six years later he won the prestigious Salon Culinaire award.
Glynn then moved to Simpson’s which won a Michelin star while he was a Sous Chef and where he also won other personal awards such as the Academie de Culinaire Francaise Annual Award of Excellence in 1996. He then went on to work with Clause Bosi at the 2 Michelin-starred Hibiscus restaurant in Ludlow before helping to launch Jessica’s back in Birmingham in 2003.

Glynn has been a winner and mentor on BBC’s ‘Great British Menu’, appears regularly on BBC2’S ‘Saturday Kitchen’ and presented a BBC1 documentary ‘Working on the Sea’ in which he follows the journey  that fish make from a Brixham trawler to his own restaurant kitchen.