Chef April Bloomfield builds a restaurant empire on 'anal rustic'

The hard-driven British chef, whose restaurants include the Spotted Pig in New York and Tosca in San Francisco, has learned to let go of her perfectionism to pursue grander things

April Bloomfield grew up in the industrial city of Birmingham, England, with a vague notion she’d like a career in law enforcement, preferably in New York City. She was quite taken by the two female Cagney & Lacey detectives and the strapping Eric Estrada atop his motorcycle in CHiPS, another 1980s American police drama. She wondered what it would it be like to eat doughnuts and the mysterious, sponge-like Twinkie on a New York City street corner in between bouts of fighting crime.

Bloomfield eventually did get to New York City, but not as a cop. Instead, she landed as the chef and co-owner of The Spotted Pig, the city’s first gastro pub, which opened in 2004. She has since introduced four more restaurants, earned two Michelin stars, published the meat-centric, snout-to-tail cookbook “A Girl and Her Pig” and won the coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York City.