Shane Osborn's latest venture emphasises the food over the chef

Arcane might seem an obscure name for a restaurant but chef Shane Osborn can shed some light on the darkness.

Saying "the culture of the celebrity chef doesn't sit well with me", Osborn wants the focus at his new restaurant - which launches formally on November 24 - to be on food, service and hospitality rather than the chef.

It might seem incongruous that Osborn would then consent to an interview in a major newspaper but his past speaks to his sincerity. In London his first restaurant Pied à Terre had two Michelin stars for eight years and his second, L'Autre Pied had one star for four years but Osborn gave it all up to take his family on a trip round the world.

Osborn's origins are in Perth, Australia, where he became an apprentice chef at the age of 15. Although working in the city's British and French restaurants in the 1980s gave him plenty of ideas of how kitchens should be run, he says, "the food was not very good quality. That made me want to leave."

He pitched up in London aged 20 in 1990 and pretty much stayed there until 2011. Aside, that is, from a break in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he worked in different Michelin rated restaurants in 1993 and 1994 and came to have a high regard for Scandinavian food.

"There is a lightness there. It's about quality, lushness, the crispy texture - they love their raw onions," says Osborn. Although the modern Scandinavian food movement, as exemplified by the award-winning Noma, hadn't yet evolved, chefs there had started moving towards using local and organic produce.