About this episode

Valentine Warner discusses his journey from portrait painter to chef, exploring food, art, and the state of British hospitality.

Valentine Warner is a chef, food writer and broadcaster who trained as a portrait painter before swapping the brush for the spoon in the kitchens of Alastair Little. He went on to make his name on BBC2 with What to Eat Now and a run of further series, and is co-founder of the Moorland Spirit Company, the Northumberland distillery behind Hepple Gin, as well as curator of the immersive food-and-craft retreat series Kitchen in the Wild. We talk cider as Britain's lost wine, the chef's view of saké, and the allure of martinis. We dig into a Dorset childhood spent dividing the world into edible and inedible — including the eating of his sister's paints — the lessons of Alastair Little's kitchen, and why he insists he isn't a forager. On Hepple we get the founder's view on Douglas fir, supercritical CO2 extraction, why no one else was using green juniper berries, and what a properly built martini actually requires. We then turn to the closing of the Norwegian chapter and what comes next for Kitchen in the Wild, a portrait of Nick Strangeway, the state of British hospitality, and the in-progress Sketchbook Cookbook. 🍋‍🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good…

Sponsors

Fever-Tree, Algebra Drinks, Belvedere Vodka, Denver & Liely

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