Classic Commons service meets a new chapter in North Africa, as Luke explains kitchen culture, sourcing, and the realities of reinventing your career abroad.

From the heat of Westminster’s Members’ Dining Room to opening a restaurant in New Cairo, chef Luke Fouracre maps an extraordinary journey through kitchens, competitions, and cuisines. Luke recalls training at Westminster Kingsway College with lecturers who had deep House of Commons ties, which helped steer him toward Parliament during a major recruitment drive under Executive Chef Mark Hill.

Inside Parliament, Luke spent most of his time in the Members’ Dining Room, covering Strangers’, Portcullis House, the Terrace, and Millbank during recess and overtime. He explains the pace, the division bell, and the need to keep plates hot while MPs voted. He also outlines weekly menu traditions like rib of beef on PMQs Wednesdays, alternating prawn cocktail and smoked salmon starters, and fish and chips on Fridays, while experimenting with techniques that were trending at the time.

Competitions were a big part of the culture. Luke remembers Salon Culinaire with a live-kitchen gold medal and winning a Craft Guild of Chefs competition that sent him to New Zealand, encouraged by senior chefs and timed around recess periods. Timeline 10 Timeline 10 Timeline 10

After Parliament, he stepped into hotel brigades at Brooklands and later Fairmont Windsor Park, where he headed 1215, a fine-dining British restaurant linked to Magna Carta. He then moved to the Royal Oak in Holyport, a Michelin-starred pub that reshaped his view of British pub food, and helped open The Bottle & Glass in Henley with a strong game focus and British larder ethos. Suppliers from the Crown Estate informed a seasonal approach before Luke ultimately up-sticks to Cairo. T

Now based in New Cairo, Luke runs Osteria restaurant and talks logistics, adaptability, and life outside central Cairo’s chaos. He shares fond memories too, from state openings to bringing his nan for lunch in the Churchill Room, and the camaraderie that defined the Westminster kitchens.

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