Chef, cookery tutor at River Cottage and cookbook author including ‘Gather’, winner of a Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards for Best Debut Food Book.

Your food celebrates simplicity. What is a moment in the kitchen where simplicity surprised you?

“I’m always surprised by how wonderful seasonal fruit and vegetables can be if you eat them when you’re supposed too.  Last night we picked two large ripe tomatoes from the green house. They were sliced, whilst still warm. trickled with a good olive oil and sprinkled with salt. That was it. We ate them with sourdough bread and torn basil. Perfect.”

Is there a place that has shaped or inspired how you cook?

“I’m inspired by the landscape in which I live, and how it changes through the seasons. My cooking has become intrinsically connected to the patterns of a year, and the ingredients that come and go, as spring turns into summer, autumn to winter. It is my clock to cook by.”

What ingredient is always in your kitchen?

“There are lots of ingredients I would hate to be without, but I think I’d really struggle if I didn’t have my little bowl of course, crunchy, flaky salt that I keep by the cooker, alongside my olive oil and black pepper. So much of the food I love to cook wouldn’t taste as good if I wasn’t able to sprinkle a bit over.”

What does the rest of the year have in store for you?

“I’m working on two seasonal cookbooks at the moment, which will be published in 2026. They’re coming together slowly, but I have a way to go yet.”


READ: Outside: Recipes for a Wilder Way of Eating

FOLLOW: @gill.meller

Photograph credit: Matt Austin