The Chef’s Table is back for June and this month I spoke to the wonderful Jacqueline O’Donnell, Chef/Patron of the acclaimed The Sisters!

After 12 years as a pastry chef, Jak decided to try her hand at private dining and before long The Sisters was born.  With restaurants in Kelvingrove and Jordanhill, and after competing as the only female Scottish chef on the Great British Menu in 2015, this woman is unstoppable!

The Sisters menu focuses on fresh, Scottish produce, with the restaurant menus changing with the seasons and whatever meat, fruit, vegetables and other produce are at their best.

 Where did you learn to cook?

I learned to cook at college, I did 3 years hospitality management and specialised in pastry. I then became a pastry chef by default as that is the section where the girls were placed in professional kitchens. I lived in France for a year again working as trainee pastry chef in a small family hotel.

What’s your earliest food memory?

Digging and pulling rhubarb from my grannies garden at 4/5 years old and making the connection when we got pudding later that day.  My payment for gathering the rhubarb was a wee poke of sugar & a half stalk to dip it in – such a treat let me tell you!  Oh and the rhubarb crumble was good too 😉

What do you cook at home?

Actually all quite basic meat & two veg.  My husband and kids of 12 & 10 seem to quite like the more traditional style. Never happy at a bowl of pasta, we always have a sharing board that we serve at the table, Sundays being everyone’s favourite as its always a battle to who gets to pick what Roast we are having!!

What’s been the highlight of your career so far?

Being able to say that I have been a chef/patron of my own restaurants for 20 years feels like a massive achievement, I’m really proud of the journey.

What’s the best thing about being a chef?

Getting to cook with the best ingredients Scotland’s got to offer and inspiring people to appreciate how good our produce is here.

For more information on Jak and The Sisters Restaurants, you can visit the website here, and make sure you get down to one of the restaurants soon to experience the newly launched summer menu.  Don’t forget to check back in next month to see who’s at the next Chef’s Table!