PURE Team Profile - Adele Holland

Adele was born and raised in Romford, Essex in the UK and spent her secondary school years at New Hall Boarding school in Chelmsford, an old hunting lodge that belonged to Henry VIII. She loved tennis, rounders, skiing and cooking but photography was her real passion! After school Adele attended the renowned Leith’s School of Food and Wine in Kensington, London. After a few months she had already caught the attention of Dame Prue Leith (of ‘Great British Bake Off’ fame!) and was recruited by her to cook at the Royal Dart Yacht Club in Dartmouth, home of the Royal Naval College.

After Dartmouth Adele went to work for Angela Hartnett, a protégée of Gordon Ramsey, at her Restaurant, “Angela Hartnett at the Connaught”. In Adele’s own words she learnt tons working here!

From there she went to The Ivy, a restaurant popular with celebrities, and she brushed shoulders with the likes of Bob Geldof, the Beckhams and Kate Moss as well as learning her work ethic - 130 covers for lunch and up to 340 covers for dinner service regularly!

A change of scenery took her to the Globe Theatre Restaurant where she worked for 3 years to help build the restaurant business, the new bar and events scene. She then had the good fortune to hook up with 2 entrepreneurs who founded BistroTech - possibly the world’s first pop-up restaurant business. Adele worked with the Head Chef in the Benthal Green restaurant in E. London and then with many of the other pop-up restaurants around London, as needed. Here she found herself mixing with the arty crowd of the 90’s, such as fashion designer, Alexander McQueen and broadcaster, Janet Street-Porter CBE.

In 2010, Adele finally got to enact her childhood dream and her first of 9 consecutive winters in Verbier. Cooking in Chalets by night – skiing and having resort fun by day. The most memorable moment was breaking her leg - stone cold sober, not on skis, but walking down the road and slipping on a discarded champagne bottle…. The next few years Del found herself returning to the UK in summer and working as Cook-at-Large across the BistroTech Group and as a Chalet cook in the winter in Verbier - until her last 4 winter seasons when she remained in Europe, hung out with friends and tramped until the next winter came along.

Whilst in Verbier Del was spotted by the family behind a global fast-food brand who took her on as their private chef – flying her around in their private jet as needed. This arrangement lasted until as recently as Christmas 2020-21 when Del was flown to their home in South Africa to be Christmas Cook for the family!

On one of her summers away from Europe, Del found NZ and made the break from Verbier to Cardrona in 2018. Del cooked with Cardrona Alpine Resort from 2018-2019 and joined PURE New Zealand Ice Cream in May 2019. She brought all her cooking skills and her unbelievable work ethic to bear and makes magnificent ice creams, sorbets and gelatos. In what is a very physical environment, with 25kg bags of sugar and 20kg pails of ingredient par for the course, she brings her culinary skills, hard work and energy to work every day – and sometimes at weekends!

But that’s not all. Del also uses her childhood passion for photography and is our very own in-house food photographer. She’s able to capture amazing images of our product…. aren’t we lucky?!

She has a great group of friends who, like her, enjoy the outdoors and tramping - so Del can be found at Mueller Hut, French Ridge Hut or on a Great Walk when she’s not making ice cream or taking amazing photographs.

We’re grateful to have you Del, you’re an absolute treasure!