Gaz Oakley, aka the Avant Garde Vegan, started a passionate career in cooking as a teenager, appearing on ITV daytime cooking show Britain’s Best Dish after taking up catering as a GCSE subject.

Since then, the chef turned blogger has gone from working in restaurants in his home town of Cardiff to taking some time out of cooking, before turning vegan ‘literally overnight’ and dedicating himself full time to his Avant Garde Vegan project. After being encouraged by friends and family to showcase his vegan remakes of meals like fillet steaks and chicken burgers, Oakley set up his YouTube channel and has amassed over 300,000 dedicated subscribers since then. By all accounts his hard work has paid off - his debut cookbook, Vegan 100, comes out next week and launches with a sold out five course vegan supper club at Harvey Nichols just in time to celebrate the end of Veganuary.