How Ottolenghi’s bright colours and vivid tastes changed the way we eat

The sheer vibrancy and joy of Yotam Ottolenghi's Mediterranean-inspired dishes caught everyone's imagination

In 2002 the literary agent Felicity Rubinstein found herself drawn to a white-walled deli that had just opened around the corner from her home in London's Notting Hill. It was called Ottolenghi and its food display was a riot of colour and promise. Eating it looked like it might be a quick route to feeling good about yourself. I became rather obsessed with it," she says now. I reckoned it wasn't difficult to make this food. I just had to know what was in it." Soon Ottolenghi opened an outpost in Islington. Sarah Lavelle, then an editor at Ebury Books, lived close by. I went down one weekend and people were queueing out the door. I thought, Something's going on here.'" Merope Mills, then editor of the Guardian's Weekend magazine, also visited. I was looking for a new vegetarian cooking columnist," she says. And I was struck by all these brilliant-looking salads."

Ottolenghi and Tamimi took simple ingredients and made them sing