Before securing her place in British culinary history at the Carved Angel, Molyneux had worked at the Mulberry Tree in Stratford-upon-Avon and the groundbreaking Hole in the Wall in Bath, which had also been owned by Perry-Smith. Molyneux with, from left, Angela Hartnett, Nigella Lawson and Jay Rayner, 2017. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian In the 1980s The Carved Angel Cookery Book by Joyce Molyneux was published, becoming an instant classic. 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

Her cooking was often described as “heartwarming”, “reassuring” or “honest”: attributes that endeared her to her public, especially as they never detracted from taste and flavour. In her closing decades at the stove, although she never sought the role and although she had many male lieutenants, she might have been deemed a feminist beacon, as her staff and assistants were overwhelmingly female and went on themselves to often distinguished careers. Molyneux with, from left, Angela Hartnett, Nigella Lawson and Jay Rayner, 2017. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The GuardianFood 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". In the event, this proved to be two new ventures: a restaurant-with-rooms in Helford, Cornwall, looked after by George and Heather, and a place with sensational views of the mouth of the river at Dartmouth in Devon, soon to be christened the Carved Angel. This was run by Joyce in the kitchen and myself (Perry-Smith’s stepson) front of house. I stayed in the post until 1984 and, after a year or two’s interregnum, Joyce was joined by Meriel Matthews (George’s niece), with whom she had a most warm, profitable and satisfactory business partnership until her retirement. In Dartmouth, a small town, her work was no longer viewed with suspicion (‘Such prices!’) but as a matter of pride A passion for cooking is in my genes, which has been passed on to my children, too. My grandmother was a wonderful cook, as was my mother, but my first great cookbook influence came in the form of Julia Child. Mastering the Art of French Cooking is my cooking down to a T – classically French and simply communicated. It’s entirely without photography, but it was my go-to cookbook as a young and amateur cook. 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 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.

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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.

TV chef James Martin described her as "a pioneer of the UK food scene" while HOSPA president Harry Murray said she was "a true legend of the culinary arts". urn:lcp:carvedangelcooke0000moly_h4j0:epub:2deab67d-b362-4e4c-8cf9-62340f343001 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier carvedangelcooke0000moly_h4j0 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2drrq2sgn5 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0004112644 It was a great combination, but more than that Joyce was a valuable source of advice, understated, as was everything about her but always wise. It was also the first restaurant I had been to where the kitchen was open to the diners, very trendy in those days. In 1974 Molyneux assumed the role of head chef at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth, Devon, when her friend, colleague and acclaimed post-war chef George Perry-Smith bought the property. 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.Her contribution to Britain's WWII food culture really can't be overstated," said Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner. 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." 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. At the time I was working as an interior designer for a London-based architecture firm. When I got home in the evenings, all I did was cook. Sometimes I stayed up all night cooking. It was an obsession and, eventually, I decided to hand in my notice to pursue it as a career. Trouble is, then I realised how little I knew! Going through the impressionists’ books was important to me, because they put me on to a different level before I went into professional kitchens. When Perry-Smith sold up in 1972, Molyneux decamped to the south-west to take the reins of a down-at-heel restaurant in Dartmouth that would become her home for the next 27 years. To begin with, she ran the place with Perry-Smith's stepson, Tom Jaine (who went on to edit The Good Food Guide), and it was Perry-Smith's niece, Meriel Matthews, another Hole in the Wall graduate, who inadvertently provided the impetus for the new book. "While having a clearout, Meriel came across a stash of old recipes from the restaurant," Molyneux says, "and one thing led to another." (Her only previous publication was 1990's The Carved Angel Cookery Book, which sold 50,000 copies, a staggering number for a chef without a TV deal or newspaper column.)