About Paul Bellchambers
I am Paul Bellchambers — a chef, photographer, and writer based on the Isle of Wight.
The island has been the constant thread through everything I have made. We moved here in December 2020, during lockdown, looking for a change of pace. We found something we were not expecting: one of the most concentrated and characterful food and creative communities in the country — a place with exceptional producers, extraordinary light, and a landscape small enough to feel entirely knowable and yet endlessly surprising.
I live near Yarmouth in the West Wight, and I spend my time here cooking, photographing, and writing. Those three things are not separate. They are all versions of the same impulse — to pay close attention to a place and try to render what is particular and irreplaceable about it.
The Cooking
I spent twenty years in IT — working for Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Research in Motion. I was good at it. But cooking was always there in the background, something I did at weekends for friends, for the sheer pleasure of it. At 48, I decided to do something about that.
I retrained formally, gaining a City & Guilds Diploma in Professional Catering at Thames Valley University, then spent time working in the kitchens at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons — Raymond Blanc’s two-Michelin-star restaurant. That experience was intense, rigorous, and genuinely formative. It shapes how I teach to this day.
I am a member of the Guild of Food Writers and the Craft Guild of Chefs. I taught at the WI Cookery School at Denman College and managed the school for six months. I founded the Wallingford Food Festival in 2011, which won three Tourism South East awards over five years. I have had a regular cookery slot on BBC Radio Oxford, and have presented at the Great Wight Bite food festivals on the Isle of Wight.
Today I cook privately for individuals and events across the Isle of Wight, from intimate dinners for two to celebrations for forty or more. I teach the principles of good cooking through my Substack — Be the Chef in Your Kitchen — which is read by cooks at every level, from every corner of the world. Everything food-related lives at The Island Chef.
The Photography
Photography came before the cooking. I have been photographing the Isle of Wight for years — its water especially, the sailing races that bring the world here each summer, the chalk stacks of the Needles in raking winter light, the Solent in all weathers and all seasons. The camera has become the way I pay close attention to this place.
My collections document the island across events, seasons, and subjects — from the Round the Island Race and Cowes Week to the downland in November when the tourists are gone and the island is entirely itself. Prints are available from my print shop, made to order through a professional print laboratory.
View the photography collections → Browse the print shop →
The Writing
Twenty-Eight Years is my first novel — a book about marriage, divorce, and the devastating long aftermath of loss, told across seven perspectives and five decades. It is not a comfortable book. It refuses to assign villainy. Every character believes they are right, and the reader is asked to hold that simultaneously, without the comfort of a verdict.
From June 2026, the writing of the novel is being documented in real time on Substack — draft extracts, craft essays, the research behind the story, and the experience of writing a first book. The novel has its own website at twentyeightyears.com.
Visit twentyeightyears.com → Follow on Substack →
The Island
The Isle of Wight is not just where I live. It is the subject. Its garlic, tomatoes, crab, and fresh fish find their way into almost everything I cook. Its light and water are what I photograph. Its particular character — remote and self-contained, with a food culture that punches far above its size — informs everything I make.
Away from the kitchen and the camera, I volunteer as a Watchkeeper at the Needles NCI station — the National Coastwatch Institution post at the western tip of the island, keeping watch over some of the most demanding waters on the south coast.
Credentials
Guild of Food Writers — Member, and committee member for six years
Craft Guild of Chefs — Member
City & Guilds Diploma — Professional Catering, Thames Valley University
Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons — Kitchen experience under Raymond Blanc and Gary Jones
WI Cookery School, Denman College — Taught courses and managed the school
Wallingford Food Festival — Founded 2011; three Tourism South East awards over five years
BBC Radio Oxford — Regular cookery slot, The Afternoon Show
Great Wight Bite — Food festival presenter, 2023 and 2024
Needles NCI — Volunteer Watchkeeper
Isle of Wight Cookery School — Founder
Find Me Online
The Island Chef
theislandchef.co.uk →
Twenty-Eight Years
twentyeightyears.com →
Cookery Substack
Be the Chef in Your Kitchen →
Print Shop
paulbellchambers.pixieset.com →