It is small wonder that Molyneux's peers hold her in such high esteem. Angela Hartnett – one of the few women to have followed in Molyneux's Michelin-starred footsteps – says: "Hers was the first 'proper posh' restaurant I ever went to in this country – and the first place I had basil ice-cream, long before today's big boys discovered the Pacojet." Joyce was born in Handsworth, a suburb of Birmingham, the middle child of Irene Mary (nee Wolfenden) and Maurice William Molyneux, assistant chief chemist to the firm of W&T Avery, scale makers. In 1939, as war threatened, the three children were evacuated to Worcestershire, where Joyce was billetted with a family of three girls and attended the local Ombersley primary school and, when she was 11, the Birmingham King Edward VI grammar school for girls, which had been evacuated to Worcester at the same time. She returned to Birmingham in 1943.

She will be remembered, with more than the usual fondness at the passing of a veteran, for the quarter-century she spent at the stoves in the Carved Angel on the quayside at Dartmouth. The profound sense of comfort that diners enjoyed, with a view over the river Dart out front, and the undemonstrative bustle of the open kitchens behind (and it is worth recalling what a novelty an open kitchen was in this era), made the Angel one of the radiant jewels of southwestern dining. It seemed a perfect fit with a harbour town still reached, when the road fizzles out, by a short crossing on a flat-bed ferry. Bath-based baker Richard Bertinet, said: "Sad to hear that the legend and our neighbour in Bath has passed away, I'll miss her stories and smile." Bryan Webb, chef-patron at Tyddyn Llan in Llandrillo, Denbighshire, described her as "a fantastic cook" and "a great inspiration to all of my generation". Molyneux with, from left, Angela Hartnett, Nigella Lawson and Jay Rayner, 2017. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian She went on to make the Carved Angel – now the Angel – her own until her retirement in 1999, and famously became one of the first British female chefs to earn a Michelin star while there. In doing so she put the restaurant, and herself, at the forefront of the growth of modern British cookery in the 1970s and 1980s.

Publishers Text

Most of the staff were young, middle-class women, who looked on it as a finishing school. But they always worked flat-out, and there was tremendous team spirit. Joyce survived her time waiting at table and concentrated on the kitchen. Here she was soon often in charge. As the years rolled by, and Perry-Smith took a more executive role, she was eventually offered a junior partnership, together with Heather Crosbie (later George’s fourth wife). When the restaurant was sold in 1972, it was expected that she would join her two partners in a new venture. So how did this middle-class woman from Birmingham become such a pioneer? "It's funny," Molyneux says, "but after leaving school I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. I'd enjoyed cooking as a child, so decided to try my hand at the local domestic science college. After that, I was at a loose end – this was prewar, a time when one's parents had more influence over the choices you made – and my father, who was a chemist, got me a job in the works canteen of a local industrial plating firm." Chez Bruce owner Bruce Poole said: "Joyce was a true titan of British cooks. A couple of dinners cooked by her at The Carved Angel are amongst the most memorable of my life. A great loss."

Leaving college (where she had to resit her cookery exam), she was found a job by her father in a canteen at W Canning & Co, manufacturers of electroplating equipment. A fellow student alerted her to the chance of a job at the Mulberry Tree in Stratford, where she was taken on in 1951 as general assistant by the chef, who worked alone. Douglas Sutherland was classically trained, very well regarded, and gave Joyce a thorough grounding in professional cooking over the next eight years. It was good enough for her to be able to teach Perry-Smith (an amateur) a thing or two when she joined him at the Hole in the Wall. Photograph: Collins Jaine once said: "If you cook beyond 40, there must be something wrong with you. It's so punishing." Yet Molyneux didn't hang up her apron until she was 68. "I just loved cooking," she says. "So many talented people passed through our kitchen. Seeing them all go off and set up on their own, as chefs, producers or whatever, was wonderful. It made it all worthwhile." But what joined these three women at the hip was more than recipes, it was a style of refined and observant cookery that respected the locale while never giving up on adventure or, most important of all, the taste of things. This is what made Joyce such a favourite with home cooks – and the many thousands who dined at her tables. Her Carved Angel Cookery Book, written in 1990 with Grigson’s daughter Sophie, sold well given that Joyce’s exposure to media attention was so slight.urn:lcp:carvedangelcooke0000moly_h4j0:epub:2deab67d-b362-4e4c-8cf9-62340f343001 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier carvedangelcooke0000moly_h4j0 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2drrq2sgn5 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0004112644

In the 1980s The Carved Angel Cookery Book by Joyce Molyneux was published, becoming an instant classic.Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-06-30 16:08:52 Associated-names Grigson, Sophie Autocrop_version 0.0.14_books-20220331-0.2 Boxid IA40588914 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Food writer and broadcaster Simon Hopkinson describes Molyneux as having "a very, very special approach to cookery, which is one of exceptional good taste, a natural understanding of ingredients and how they are best prepared, cooked, consumed and enjoyed". Joyce Molyneux, one of the first British female chefs to earn a Michelin star, has died at the age of 91. Molyneux was banging the drum for cooking with fresh, seasonal produce way before the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls and Jamie Olivers of this world were even born, though to judge from the press they get you would be forgiven for thinking this was a thoroughly modern mindset. In her years at the Hole in the Wall, where she was employed from 1959 to 1972 by George Perry-Smith, the founder of the restaurant, her (and his) cooking was associated particularly with the books issued from 1951 by Elizabeth David. Neither would deny David’s influence, but in truth their sources were far more eclectic than a single writer. This association continued to be mentioned when Joyce moved to the Carved Angel in 1974, where another intelligent writer, Jane Grigson, was included as a mentor. Again, Joyce would not have disclaimed her admiration for Grigson.

During a period when the Roux brothers, Pierre Koffmann, Nico Ladenis and Raymond Blanc were transforming the culinary landscape of Britain, Molyneux was a lone female figure at the forefront of the revolution. She was a homegrown talent, without classical French training, but in possession of an instinctive understanding of ingredients and what worked.Joyce Molyneux was profiled on Channel 4's pathbreaking series, Take Six Cooks, in 1986, when she showcased some of her fish recipes. There could hardly have been a greater disparity between her appealing domestic approach and the highly fangled nouvellerie on display in the rest of the strand. In 1990, The Carved Angel Cookery Book was published, written in association with Jane Grigson's daughter Sophie. Here too, the contrast was instructive. Unlike many another restaurateur's recipe book of the period, it was both inspiring in its reach but practical for the home cook. On the cover, Joyce appeared in the famous headscarf, sparing a moment for a camera in the act of slicing a salmon. It would become one of the most treasured cookbooks of the period.