StyleNest chat to TV personality and one of Britain’s favourite chefs, Valentine Warner to find out about his latest involvement with Lurpak and the London dining scene.

Warner gives us some handy tips on how to disguise the veggies for the little ones (as well as the big ones too) as well sharing with us his cooking personal favourite hotspots from around the UK.

You have teamed up with Lurpak to create five new recipes to celebrate the latest collection of butters called The Cook’s Range. Can you tell us a little bit more about this new collection?

Lurpak have released a range of cook’s products called the ‘Cook’s Range’ designed to make life easier for adventurous home cooks. For example, the clarified butter is already clarified and the cooking liquid is pre-mixed oil and butter.  This range is to take stages out of cooking i.e. clarifying the butter or mixing the oil with the butter for searing.  A handy go-to for the modern cook. They can be bought from all of the major supermarkets for £2.70-£3.25 depending on the product.

There is a big debate between butter and olive oil at the moment. Can you settle this for us? Should we embrace cooking with butter?

I am not so sure that I have got that involved.  My business is to cook food, so it’s as delicious as it can possibly be. There’s a time for olive oil and there’s a time for butter. From a personal point of view, I regulate my diet in that, when I have been feasting, I head towards what could be argued as healthier food. Whether olive oil guzzlers or butter enthusiasts, I know healthy ones and non-healthy ones. I would, however, add that new research suggesting that animal fats and butter may not be so bad for us after all and I wholeheartedly go along with.

You have written many books as well as hosted a number of TV series such as ‘What to Eat Now’, what has been your greatest achievement so far?

I don’t see my life in terms of achievements.  I find this a hard question to answer.  Maybe the fact that I am now in a very privileged position to travel and film or broadcast on radio, learning from people is an achievement, compared to the very confusing place I was seven years ago, where my most common question was “what the hell am I about”?.

Despite the economic climate, the London dining scene is thriving. Have you ever thought about opening your own restaurant?

Yes I have and I’d like to at some point, however, I’m an artist through and through. I just want to cook, make the place look how I imagine it and make sure people have a good time in it, but that’s not enough to run a business. I need a partner, who can do all the spreadsheets and important bits and bobs I can’t get my head around. If I did have a restaurant, I like the idea of cooking over wood, in the middle of a wood, the restaurant made out of wood. 

What inspires you to create new dishes? Any particular places or people?

Although sometimes I’m required to come up with preconceived ideas, I prefer being dropped into a situation that requires me to look around, maybe understand the history or locality.  This could be a French market, the middle of nowhere or trying to conjure something up from a nearly-empty fridge. I think on my feet when I’m cooking. It seems a lot of the time that there are those who can’t cook without the things they rely on. I’m not one of those.

When you are not busy writing books or appearing before us on our TV screens, what do you do to sit back and relax?

Fishing and then more fishing. It might not be considered by some to be relaxing, but standing on a riverbank with a flyrod, I can blot out the rest of the world. My mind is flooded with nature, concentration and that ridiculous sense of hope that all fishermen employ. I might be called unprofessional when I fish, as I turn off my phone, but then again it is meant to be relaxing.

Which are some of your favourite restaurants around the UK?

Sushi Sai, Willesden, London. Barrafina, Frith Street, Soho. The Seahorse, Dartmouth, Devon. Nathan Outlaw, Cornwall…to name but a few.

Any top tips for mums who aren’t confident cooks? Any secrets how to get little ones to get excited about veggies?

Buy my new book, What to Eat Next. With regards to children, disguise the things that they don’t like among things that they do – maybe chopping that thing into an unrecognisable shape.  Or lie and  call a pheasant a ‘woodland chicken’, call cabbage ‘flat broccoli’, call asparagus ‘squirrel javelins’.

You’re a father yourself. What advice would you give parents to help prepare time efficient, nutritious and tasty meals for the family?

Keep it simple.

You trained under the likes of Alastair Little and Rose Carrarini before setting up a private catering company. What impact did learning your trade with these chefs have on your career?

That my great interest lay in provincial food, ‘international grandmother’ so to speak.  There was less of a hierarchy in Alistair’s kitchen – everybody had to learn to do everything. He had so much information to tell you, not just about cooking the ingredient, but its history and its sense of place. He is the most important chef in my life and is hugely responsible for the new Italian movement in London, post the spaghetti mafia. Rose was similar in her very uncomplicated approach to food and the joy she got from cooking it.

Are there any chefs in particular whom you admire?

Very much so.  Joyce Molyneux, Simon Hopkinson, Alistair Little, Mark Hix, Jane Baxter and Margot & Fergus Henderson. I’d just like to say a little on Nathan Outlaw – a giant cook with the tenderest touch.  As his empire grows and with more work to do, he handles it in a calmer way than I would ever attribute to anyone else.  He seems to be able to do his business, while having a lovely discussion with you at the same time. Impressive guy. The author of my favourite cookbook, Jeremy Round – his book is called The Independent Cook.  Out of print, but go buy one on Amazon. Brilliant.

Can you tell our readers about any exciting projects you may be working on?

Two series – ‘Hook it Cook it’ and ‘Valentine Warner’s Wild Table, Canada’ will be coming out on National Geographic and Fox 24 Kitchen over the next month.

What’s your motto?

Onwards…and if I may include one more, my Dad said “if you treat a goat farmer or a king with equal respect, you will have a good life” – in other words, I can’t bear snobs.

For more information visit www.valentinewarner.com