Kate Probert

Kate Probert has won accolades and entries in The Good Food Guide and The Michelin Guide, gained working experience with high profile chefs, Albert Roux at Le Gavroche and Marco Pierre-White at Harvey’s and is now owner of L’Amuse Chez Kate, one of Wales’ finest cookery schools. And there is still more – she is a regular contributor to BBC Radio Wales and her first book will be published later this year. Kate is a culinary force, a connoisseur who delights in sharing her vast knowledge to inspire, encourage and ultimately create more foodies!

Kate has always loved cooking. As a very young teenager, she was making and selling Welsh cakes at Swansea market, thriving on the hustle and bustle and hard graft that markets exact. But it was leaving Wales for France, at just 18, to work as an au pair, where she was introduced to French cuisine, and her palette and creativity were ignited. This was where ‘she really learned how to eat’. She came back to Wales with notebooks full of amazing recipes and began re-creating incredible French dishes and then expanding this new cuisine with traditional Welsh recipes.

Working in different hotels, gaining experience in all types of catering, she was eventually invited to run the restaurant at Fairyhill in Gower. Initially intended for residents only, Kate’s unique menu forced it to open to the public and they soon had entries in The Good Food Guide and the Michelin Guide.

From Fairyhill to London and work experience at Albert Roux’s Le Gavroche and Marco Pierre-White’s, Harvey’s. From London to Chamonix, at the base of Mont Blanc, to manage Restaurant Panoramique at Hotel Alpina and then back to Wales to open her own French restaurant L’Amuse in Mumbles.

After years of running her highly successful restaurant, Kate was eager for a new challenge. She closed the restaurant, studied for a degree in Italian and French and moved to Italy, to immerse herself in Italian culture and food.

Now back in Wales, Kate runs a small cookery school from her home in Gower where she is able to share her extensive knowledge of cooking with like-minded people, gathered from a lifetime working with food.