Full disclosure – Tom Rowlands and I have known each other for over 30 years, since the summer of 1994, back when the Chemical Brothers were still called The Dust Brothers, when they were making their bones at the Heavenly Social, DJing to 100 people in a sweat-drenched basement off Great Portland Street. We both moved to Notting Hill in the early 90s and stayed in the area for much of the decade. Within three years of us meeting, Tom and his musical partner Ed Simons would have a Gold album in America and be headlining festivals. Tom remains utterly unchanged: a laidback exterior conceals the kind of steely focus you need to write Gold albums and become a superstar DJ. This year, with the Chemical Brothers on hiatus, he embarked on a new project, TOMORA, a partnership with Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora Aksnes.
Early in the millennium, Tom and his wife Vanessa moved down to East Sussex to raise their three children, all now in their twenties. We meet for lunch in the courtyard garden of The Star hotel in Alfriston, a few minutes’ cycle from the Rowlands’ family home. It is a beautiful afternoon in the first week of June. Our starters arrive swiftly: beetroot carpaccio with goat’s cheese and candied walnuts for Tom. Grilled mackerel with beetroot and horseradish remoulade for me. We’re both drinking very cold Gavi. We get down to it.
You grew up in the country, didn’t you? Was food a thing when you were young?
I grew up in Henley-on-Thames. We’d go to Henley’s one Chinese restaurant – a George Harrison favourite of course! You’d often see George about in Henley back in the day. But a real formative food memory was when our parents took us to Veeraswamy, the oldest curry house in London, on Piccadilly. It was quite grand. A Sikh guard with turban on the door. You’d get the lift up there and I remember being like ‘Woah! This is cool. This is something very exciting.’
A lifelong love of Indian food was born?
Pretty much, yeah. My mum would make a nice curry. You know, 70s style. Sultanas. I still like a cooked sultana!
You left home in 1989, to study history at the University of Manchester, where you met Ed. Was the city an expansion of your food horizons?
Ha! Not really. Abdul’s Kebabs! Or there was a takeaway near us that would do you a huge bowl of noodles for, like, 37pence. Gregg’s was a favourite.
