Carla Tomasi obituary

Chef who helped shape the gastronomy of London in the 1980s and later returned to Italy and gave cookery classes in Rome

Carla Tomasi, who has died aged 70, belonged to a generation of chefs, among them Alastair Little, Simon Hopkinson, Antony Worrall Thompson and Rowley Leigh, who helped shape the gastronomic geography of London in the 1980s.

She became head chef of Frith’s, in Frith Street, Soho, early in that decade and, not long after, took over the restaurant altogether. This was a time when few restaurants were run, let alone owned, by women. However, Sally Clarke (at Clarke’s), Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray (at the River Café) and Juliet Peston (at Alastair Little) were successfully challenging male domination. Like these redoubtable pioneers, Tomasi showed passion, resolve and determination – her colleague and friend Jeremy Lee described her as “distinctly feisty”.

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