Skye Gyngell, a London-based chef who pioneered the “slow food” movement and was the first Australian woman to be awarded a Michelin star, died on Saturday. She was 62, British news media reported.
Ms. Gyngell, who was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2024, died in London, according to a statement posted on Instagram by one of her restaurants, Spring.
“Skye was far more than a chef — or, as she preferred to say, a cook,” the statement read. “She was a mentor, an anchor and a force who helped so many of us find our place in what we do.”
A trailblazer in sustainable and environmentally friendly cooking practices, Ms. Gyngell was most associated with the slow food movement, which countered fast food culture and sought to preserve local traditions.
Even as her star rose, Ms. Gyngell shied away from the pretense and performance of upscale dining. After earning a Michelin star in 2011, she opened the restaurant Spring in London in 2014 as her first solo venture. Two years later, she launched a menu she called “Scratch,” which created dishes entirely through food “waste,” — items that would normally be discarded, like vegetable trimmings, fruit peels and buttermilk, a byproduct of making butter.
“I believe so much of the planet’s health and future happiness depends on us growing and eating more wisely,” she said in an undated interview with Wildsmith Skin Magazine. Spring would go on to become the first single-use-plastic-free restaurant in London.
Across the culinary spectrum, she was hailed as a creative, dynamic chef whose commitment to the environment inspired a generation.
“However ill you know someone to be, their death is always a shock,” Nigella Lawson, an English food writer and celebrity chef, said in a post on Instagram. “It’s just awful that Skye is no longer in the world. It’s a tremendous loss.”
“Her culinary style and good taste was second to none,” the chef Jamie Oliver posted in a tribute on Instagram. “She was a kind influence in a noisy restaurant industry.”
Raised in Australia, Ms. Gyngell studied in Sydney and Paris before landing in London, where she worked at the French House, a century-old haunt in Soho, and as a private chef to high-profile clients, including Madonna.
She began to make her name in 2004, when she established the cafe at Petersham Nurseries, in the leafy town of Richmond, southwest of London. There, she convinced friends to let her set up shop in a greenhouse in their gardens and sought to create what she called “the antithesis of a West End restaurant,” referring to London’s theater district, which is saturated with high-end and often fast-paced dining options.
For her sophisticated, understated eatery, situated within the native garden, Ms. Gyngell pulled inspiration and ingredients from the on-site nursery. Crafting delicate plates inside a shed, she was awarded a coveted Michelin star in 2011.
The Telegraph newspaper called it “perhaps the most ramshackle eatery to ever be awarded” the distinction.
But the star was a double-edged sword for Ms. Gyngell, who made little secret of the pressure that came with it.
“Since we got the star we’ve been rammed every single day, which is really hard for such a tiny restaurant, and we’ve had lots more complaints,” she said. She quit the restaurant in 2012, took down the star from its website and said she hoped she never received another one.
She opened Spring two years later, and was also the culinary director at the critically acclaimed Hearth and Marle restaurants at Heckfield Place, a country resort near Reading, England.
Over the last year, Ms. Gyngell had faced a cruel battle with Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer that was diagnosed in April 2024. She underwent intensive surgery that stole her palate, removing dozens of glands that helped her taste and smell. Doctors had warned she might never get either sense back.
“I wasn’t upset because it would affect my work,” she told the Financial Times in May. “I have been a chef for 40 years. I know what works on a plate. “It was more the sadness that I might never be able to enjoy food again — it being summer and not getting to taste a ripe peach.”
She would regain some of her senses, and the experience, she said, taught her to enjoy every morsel in front of her. When she could taste white truffle pasta again, she knew it was a moment to be cherished.
“Maybe my tastes will change and be completely different in a year. For now I just feel happy to have my palate back as it is,” she said.
In her final post on Instagram, dated Oct. 9, Ms. Gyngell is surrounded by loved ones and food at a grassy picnic at Heckfield Place.
Ms. Gyngell is survived by her two daughters, Holly and Evie, and a grandchild, Cyprian.
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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