About Us

ABOUT NOSH CAFE & BAR

Judith (Jude) Ower,
Chef, Baker, Barista and Owner of Nosh Café Bar

I have always been involved in food, cooking, cuisine and hospitality before founding nosh café bar. I initially started my long and varied career way back in 1978, being trained at Pru Leiths, School of Food and Wine in Notting Hill Gate, London, this was when Pru was running the school herself. We all of course know Pru these days as the co-host of The Great British Bake Off.

After graduating, I was privileged to get my first job in catering in Pru’s own private catering business which was a great experience and gave me the skills, knowledge and confidence to look further afield. After trying a short stint at Compass Catering which dealt with large corporations catering contracts, I quickly realised that this wasn’t for me, I liked and enjoyed more personal cooking. I chose to work for an agency, with my first assignment catering for company director lunches. I would go into offices in London and cook for the directors and their clients, it was great fun and very varied. I did this for a few years until by chance…
I was on holiday in Spain and I was offered a job in a very popular restaurant in a lovely Spanish village called Mojacar in the Province of Almeria, I had nothing to lose, I was in a beautiful place, with lovely friendly people, cooking local, traditional recipes with local produce and what an experience it was. After a year in the Spanish sun, I decided to invest into a beach bar. It was a little run down and tired and not attracting customers, but with some hard work and determination we got it back up and running to become one of the most popular beach bars in the area. We were open seven days a week from Easter through to the end of September. During July/August at the height of the tourist season we would quite often have live music. I came back to England in 1993 after ten years in Spain but this time with two additions, my two lovely children. 
Once I was settled back in England, I wanted to continue to work for myself, and started regularly catering for small private parties. During this time, I also had the opportunity to do some teaching in London for a very prestigious family and ended up cooking for a friend of theirs who just happened to be Sean Connery, arguably the best James Bond actor to date. My dabble with the stars, was not over yet, I then worked for the German Federation Tennis Team during Wimbledon tennis tournament over a period of four years. This included cooking for Boris Becker and Steffi Graff and any of the other German players such as Michael Stich, that came to the house which was situated just up the road from Wimbledon Tennis Club. It was rented by the team managers and the physios would be there for treatment of injuries etc, all press conferences were filmed there and of course we were there to provide lovely healthy meals for them. This sadly came to an end as they steadily lost all their best players to retirement, a shame but great fun for four years. 
I carried on catering privately but was also offered a job at my sons Montessori school cooking the lunches. I had total autonomy and control and can tell you I was on par with Jamie Oliver at making a point of providing good, wholesome healthy food. The new menu went down extremely well with pupils and teachers. 

In 2005, I left London for the greener, calmer and more peaceful towns and villages of Hampshire where I added to my family with my third child. This is where I really got my private catering off the ground. This culminated in 2015 opening nosh cafe bar on the borders of Medstead and Four Marks, and just a few hundred metres from my home. nosh cafe bar has gone from strength to strength since opening. We offer a wide selection of coffees and teas, fresh home cooked cakes and a wide selection of daily cooked food for breakfast and lunch made with local produce when we can source it.  It is incredibly hard work but extremely rewarding. I now have two full time chefs and I run the front of house with other support staff. I am not finished just yet, I have further plans to expand the nosh business and my private catering, so watch this space! 
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