My Story

Welcome to Buffet Bar. My name is Ben and this is my humble little blog, where I combine my two passions in life: food and travel.

I started out experimenting with cooking at quite a young age really. My father was a sous chef at a local Italian near where I grew up, so he encouraged me to help him with simple tasks in the kitchen, mainly as a way to keep me occupied. I think he was worried I might end up becoming a naughty teenager messing about in the street if I wasn’t occupied with something – and I suppose he was probably right.

It’s not something I talk about much, but I have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). So, having ADD growing up made it quite difficult for me to concentrate and sometimes fit in, so having a focus like cooking really did help me navigate my teenage years.

I then worked with him part-time in the kitchen in my late teens to earn some extra money, which I actually really enjoyed doing in hindsight.

Though my working life is now completely different and can be quite hectic, I do still like to come home and use those skills I picked up to cook something delicious – it’s therapeutic if nothing else! Exploring new dishes and flavours can be really rewarding, and it doesn’t have to be complicated either. All you need to do is follow a recipe and buy the right ingredients, and the rest is easy. You’re bound to make mistakes, but that’s all part of the fun of it. However, I’m a big fan of zero-waste, so I recommend starting with simple recipes that are hard to mess up to avoid wasting too much food.

To get you started, I hope to share some of my favourite, easy recipes on my blog to help you out.

Ben Thompson

I’m also big on travelling, so when I do get chance, I like exploring the culture and food of lots of different countries. I would say my favourite place to visit is Japan because they serve such delicious dishes and the culture is fantastic! You can easily immerse yourself and soak up the generations-old traditions.

So, what can you expect to find at Bufffet Bar? Well, as you might have guessed, I will be covering anything vaguely food-related, travel tips and maybe touching on some diet-related content, as it’s important to stay healthy. However, I will still enjoy a treat every now and then – even if it’s not the best for me (so I might not always be the best role model). But life is too short not to enjoy good food!

So, stay tuned for what interesting content I have on offer for you…