The Lindough Story
How it all Began
I’ve always had an interest in cooking ever since I was a young boy. I remember helping my mother or watching her cook in the kitchen at home, and it was a memorable feeling when at one stage I surpassed her, and I started teaching her. On my final year at school, I was torn between 3 course choices for college, but Culinary Arts in DIT College is what I decided in the end, because I knew in my heart, I really wanted to be a professional chef. It wasn’t an easy road to go down, but nothing ever is. Every Monday, school started at 9am and finished at 9.45pm, but I enjoyed it. After completing college, I spent the next years working in the most prestigious places I could find to work across the world.
I’ve had the pleasure to work my very first job in the Meridien Dubai in the UAE. It was an unbelievable introduction into the chef world as I worked in the Pastry kitchen, Café Chic, a French Michelin starred restaurant, and then in the international banqueting kitchen. I’ve always wanted to learn as many cuisines as I possibly could, even if I had to volunteer without salary which I have done in a Japanese teppanyaki & Chinese restaurant. I then moved to the Ritz Carlton working in various outlets including being the main breakfast chef of the hotel outlets including Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. I was the Main pub chef, as well as the Sugarloaf restaurant chef. I also worked on live cooking stations in front of customers. In my travels across the world, I have worked in various restaurants and learned from many nationalities. Many years of experience later, I began in corporate catering for Facebook, where I spent 8 years perfecting. It was such a great place to experiment, with menus changing daily and even having to come up with menus on my feet. I had a huge input with ideas, and responsibilities training and commanding a kitchen brigade of more than 30 chefs - an exciting time and place to be as the Senior Manager.
While a chef during all the madness working in kitchens, I was always a huge fan of making pizza. But it wasn’t until the last 7 years that I have really given all my passion to trying to master the Neapolitan style pizza which is not easy. I started by purchasing a small portable home pizza oven (a Roccbox by Gozney 2015) and upgrading my choice of oven through the years (Pizza Party oven 2016, Gozney-Dome oven 2021) while honing my skills. I have found over the years some quality ingredients that I now put onto my pizzas, and I now grow organic basil for the unique taste. During the lockdown, I created a group with 25 of my closest friends as an excuse to see each other when restrictions were slowly easing after a total lockdown for almost three months. I started selling my pizza which my community supported, and every other Saturday I would host a pizza day in my back garden, with an option of contactless collection.
We believe in using only the freshest and highest quality ingredients in our pizzas. From our homemade tomato sauce to our locally sourced With my family and friends around me, the idea and urge of opening a pizzeria got stronger. Suggestions are overflowing, from the concept, menus, down to the name. But LINDOUGH’S, came plain sailing, with my pet name amongst friends being Lindo (my name is Linden) - Lin-DOUGHS Pizza was born.
There is something special about this art of mixing, shaping and stretching the dough by hand, to placing the pizza into a glowing hot 450 degree plus oven and turning the pizza with flame licking the crust to perfection, I just love it. I try to incorporate my own flavours onto my pizzas of what I have learned in my life, so rest assure that every pizza is made with love and passion that I have for the art.
I hope you will like eating my pizza as much as a love making them.vegetables and meats, we take pride in every ingredient that goes into our pizzas.
