Interview by Larry Jayasekara: Meet the Chef of Cocochine

Every aspect Kokochin it’s about quiet indulgence. Caviar complements several courses, tables are luxuriously spaced far apart, and the walls are adorned with an ever-changing selection of art from… Hamiltons Gallery. The Mayfair restaurant, which opened last fall in a former townhouse on Bruton Place, is a joint venture between chef Larry Jayasekara and Hamiltons owner Tim Jeffries and reflects Jayasekara’s thoughtful approach to hospitality.

“It’s about taking care of the guests, cooking with love and heart and respecting the ingredients,” Jayasekara tells the Observer, speaking from the restaurant’s impressive private dining room on the top floor, which boasts three Warhol paintings. “Hospitality means opening your home to friends and family. You cook for days, and then the first thing you offer (when they arrive) is water. I don’t want to have a champagne cart in a restaurant because that shouldn’t be the first thing. I want to offer guests a glass of water and let them come in, get comfortable and relax.”

Jayasekara met Jefferies while he was working as a head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant Petrus in Belgravia. Jeffries returned to the restaurant several times, trying to convince Jayasekara to host several private dinners, which the chef eventually agreed to. Jeffries then asked Jayasekara what he wanted to do in his future career. Jayasekara said he wants to open his own restaurant.

“He didn’t say anything,” Jayasekara recalls. “Time passed. He then said, “I know a lot of people, and I could get a group of people together to help, and I could apply art, and we could create something really special together.” That’s how easy it all started.”

Designing and building Cocochine wasn’t all that easy. The team began renovating the four-story townhouse in 2020, quickly realizing they would have to completely redo the building’s foundation and structure. There was a lot to consider, including how much electricity the restaurant would need and how to build a custom kitchen with a chef’s counter on the second floor. Then Covid-19 hit and construction workers and materials became difficult to find.

It ultimately took more than three years to create the restaurant. Small details like the leather-wrapped stair railings and the carved marble drinks table were important to Jayasekara, who was also able to create a custom chef’s kitchen. On the lower level, guests can visit the modern wine cellar with over 1,500 bottles, as well as a cozy seating area where they can enjoy pre-dinner drinks. When you order a steak, the waiter brings a box of custom knives with different colored handles to choose from.

“We always wanted to make this a place where it’s about the level of art and the quality of the ingredients, so that it’s not just a plate of food,” says Jayasekara. “It’s a whole experience. Everything here is made to order. Everything is like a mosaic. Everything must match. Everything had to be exactly the way we wanted: flowers, water, steak knives, plates, tiles, curtains.”

The food is also impeccable. Most of the ingredients come from the Rowler Farm estate in Northamptonshire, to which the restaurant has exclusive access. The salad, for example, features more than a dozen vegetables and herbs from the farm, and some proteins, including pork, are shipped 60 miles from the estate to Cocochin. Other ingredients, such as fish, are carefully sourced from Scotland.

Jayasekara spends one day a week on the farm, which he believes is essential to his work as a chef, who emphasizes seasonality and quality. He also uses ingredients and flavors from his travels as well as his upbringing in Sri Lanka. Each dish celebrates decadence in an understated and elegant manner, exemplified by the exquisite appetizer of Japanese otoro, roasted foie gras and golden Oscietra caviar.

“We don’t do anything you’re not already familiar with,” Jayasekara explains. “I want the menu, when you open it, to have scallops, crab, lobster, mushrooms, caviar. I’ve always dreamed of a restaurant menu where you can’t choose just one dish. If you need every dish, you’ve come to the right place. Hopefully we’ll do that and focus on two or three ingredients rather than 15 (in each dish).”

Jayasekara’s obsession with quality can best be understood by the menu’s standout dessert: Tahiti vanilla ice cream served with brown sugar and caramel. This may be the most memorable ice cream you’ve ever tasted because Jayasekara insisted that the vanilla bean content be greatly increased.

First, for every liter of crème anglaise, the chef added 15 vanilla beans, a significant number of vanilla beans. “It was normal,” he says. “But I wanted the vanilla seeds to click on the palate. This is not vanilla essence, vanilla powder or anything else. So I said, “Let’s put it at 20.” And now for one liter of crème anglaise there is half a kilo of fresh Tahitian vanilla. It’s 50 percent vanilla. And believe it or not, the best-selling dessert since we opened has been vanilla ice cream.”

Growing up in Sri Lanka, Jayasekara never imagined he’d have his own restaurant in Mayfair to test the limits of vanilla ice cream. He had never seen cauliflower, caviar or scallop before he moved to London two decades ago. His life at home was simple: surfing, grilling fish and eating stew. He admits his life is “very privileged” now, but it has taken Jayasekara years of hard work and sacrifice to reach this place in his career. He started in London cleaning bins, then moved on to chopping vegetables in a Thai restaurant and eventually went to culinary school.

“Learning to cook is all about finding a job,” says Jayasekara. “I didn’t know how to cook. I’ve never cooked before. They gave me another passport. It turned me from a little boy surfing to a novice anal about the size of a scallop or the taste of grass. It’s a crazy journey. 20 years ago I woke up in the morning and thought about how many waves were coming.”

Jayasekara worked at renowned restaurants such as the Waterside Inn, Michel Bras and Le Manoir aux Quat’Saison before eventually becoming head chef at Petrus, a restaurant specializing in fine French cuisine. Despite Ramsay’s reputation, Jayasekara says the celebrity chef has never yelled at him in the kitchen.

“It was a very good experience,” he says. “He trusted me to manage Petrus and I have a lot of respect for Gordon. He knows exactly what the market needs and what the menu should be. Trusting someone like him to run one of his flagship restaurants; it was a privilege. I learned a lot about how to run a restaurant and not just cook.”

Most importantly, Jayasekara learned the basics of being a responsible person. According to Jayasekara, to be successful in advancing your career, you need three things: preparation, communication and organization. “When those three things come together, you get the full experience,” he says. “As one person, you cannot achieve anything. You can’t win the Champions League just by being Cristiano Ronaldo, right?”

This, according to Jayasekara, determines a chef’s success, not Michelin stars or rave reviews. It’s not just about having a loyal team, but also a restaurant with packed tables and regulars who seem to come back again and again for the aforementioned vanilla ice cream.

“Any accolades that are given to any restaurant are a reward for the way you operate, the standards to which you operate, the hospitality of the restaurant and how good the team is,” he says. “It’s always a great compliment to the team and the business. These accolades are valued in our work. But the real success is the return of the guest. Signature dishes are created by the guests, not the chef. You eat something and tell five of your friends about it, and suddenly it becomes the chef’s signature dish. This, in my opinion, is what makes a restaurant successful.”