1 Michelin star chefs: Greg Wellman, La Trompette
Greg Wellman is head chef at La Trompette, the Michelin-starred restaurant on Devonshire Road in Chiswick, west London.
La Trompette has held its Michelin star since 2008, and has now passed 25 years since the restaurant first opened its doors, in March 2001.
It is one of a small stable of restaurants built up by Bruce Poole and Nigel Platts-Martin, alongside Chez Bruce in Wandsworth and, until its closure in 2022, The Glasshouse in Kew. Greg took over as head chef at La Trompette in late 2022, arriving from The Glasshouse, where he had led the kitchen since 2018.
Under his direction, the restaurant continues to deliver Michelin-star quality built around seasonal British ingredients, with Mediterranean influence and occasional flashes of East Asian seasoning running through the menu.
greg wellman's Early career and background
Greg is from Hampshire. He enrolled at Bournemouth University to study hospitality management, but soon realised his interest lay in creating food rather than serving it, and moved into the kitchen instead.
He went on to train in some of London's most notable restaurants. He started at The Square, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant in St James's then co-owned by Nigel Platts-Martin and its chef patron, Phil Howard.
From there he moved to Bruce Poole's Chez Bruce in Wandsworth, and then to Elystan Street, another Phil Howard restaurant, in Chelsea.
Greg has also travelled extensively through Australasia and South America, and cites that experience as an influence on the range of dishes he now cooks.
Joining La Trompette
Greg was appointed head chef at The Glasshouse in Kew in February 2018. The Glasshouse was a sister restaurant to La Trompette and had held a Michelin star since 2002, three years after it opened in 1999.
He held that post until The Glasshouse closed in September 2022, after 23 years of trading, with the closure announced amid the wider cost pressures then facing the hospitality sector.
Greg moved across to La Trompette as head chef later that year, succeeding Rob Weston, who had led the kitchen there for more than a decade. He has held the role ever since.
Greg's cooking style
Greg's menus are built around seasonal British produce, with a Mediterranean thread running through them and, at times, a touch of East Asian seasoning. The restaurant describes his cooking as marked by finesse and restraint rather than unnecessary adornment.
Recent menus give a sense of that range: a starter of tuna sashimi dressed with yuzu and white soy has sat alongside heirloom tomatoes with crushed green olives and smoked paprika aioli, while a black truffle linguine and a rump of veal with butternut squash, sweetcorn, girolles and fondant potato show the more classical, French-leaning side of the kitchen.
Reviewing the restaurant for Vinous in January 2026, the critic Neal Martin praised the kitchen's consistency, writing that “the standard at La Trompette under Wellman is as good as it was under his predecessor,” and noting that “the execution of the dishes is impressive” and “the ingredients consistently shine.”
Greg is also known in the kitchen for his enthusiasm for seafood. He is a keen surfer, and the restaurant describes him as “passionate about all things 'sea'.”
Michelin star at La Trompette
La Trompette was awarded its Michelin star in 2008 and has held it every year since, long before Greg took charge of the kitchen. He inherited, rather than won, the star, and the task since 2022 has been to sustain it.
Nigel Platts-Martin has built six restaurants over his career, together accounting for ten Michelin stars, including The Square, Chez Bruce, The Ledbury and The Glasshouse, as well as La Trompette itself. Bruce Poole, his partner in Chez Bruce, has co-owned La Trompette with him since it opened.
That longevity, and the consistency reviewers have continued to note under Greg, point to a kitchen that has kept its standards up rather than simply keeping its star by default.
Beyond La Trompette
Greg's profile within the industry has grown alongside his time at La Trompette. In September 2025, he sat on the judging panel for the British Street Food Awards final, held at WestFest in Chiswick, alongside fellow chefs including Gaetano Farucci of Caractère.
It marked the first time the awards final had been held in west London after 15 years based in the east of the city, and put Greg's name alongside other Michelin-recognised chefs in the judging line-up.
Twenty-five years on from its opening, and with a head chef who has already spent four years running one of its sister kitchens, La Trompette looks set to keep its reputation for quietly consistent, ingredient-led cooking intact for some time yet.
Other Michelin Star Chefs
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