Top chefs open their kitchen cupboards

Top chefs' kitchen cabinets

The chef is a class of person who will never have to be embarrassed about having two kitchens. Professionally, they have at least one realm dominated by stainless steel, high-tech gadgets and stress. At home, it follows that the chef's kitchen is often an anti-kitchen - a place where Michel Roux Jr, for example, would far rather eat sardines on toast than lobster mousse with champagne sauce.

We asked seven of London's leading chefs, from Tomos Parry at hip grill Kitty Fisher's in Mayfair to Nieves Barragan Mohacho at Barrafina and Fergus Henderson of St John, what they like to make for themselves in their "second" domestic kitchen. And we also asked what they keep in their cupboards: their must-have essentials and the simple knock-up recipes­ that come from them.

Don't be deceived by the modest-looking contents of some of these cupboards. Even in restaurant kitchens the provisions of food can appear unpromising. In cramped cold stores, on squeezed-in shelves and in odd recesses, the tubs of grains, slabs of meat, pickles in Tupperware and ad hoc cellars of wine look nothing like dinner.

At home, as at work, it takes a chef's mind to pull it all together in style.

. . .

chef, Kitty Fisher's

I don't have much time to cook at home but when I do I enjoy simple food. After a very long shift, late at night, my preferred snack is bread toasted and rubbed with garlic, topped with squeezed tomatoes and lots of salt, with a beer to drink.

I always keep bread, garlic, good salt, tomatoes, eggs, tea and olive oil. But I am also partial to Super Noodles with spring onions. I use laver bread in lots of things too.

I often cook this one-pot dish at home; it's simple and has lots of flavour, and it includes one of my favourite ingredients - wild garlic.

serves 4-5

St John

For me, tinned petits pois are among the finest things to have up your sleeve and even finer than frozen peas.

Charles Campbell, with whom I was once the chef in a dodgy nightclub, said that his favourite store-cupboard food was sardines on toast, eaten in bed in the dark. He was a very peculiar chap. I would not fancy doing his laundry.

serves 1-2

chef and co-owner, Arbutus and Wild Honey

Discovering that I had coeliac disease was a massive hammer blow. It took an age for me to stop eating gluten altogether and, once I did, my store cupboard needed an overhaul. My love affair with sourdough bread was over. Being married to a Parisian who makes wonderful sourdough didn't help.

Luckily, I've found a great replacement, and now I always have a fresh loaf from Wild Thexton to hand - a bakery that provides some of London's top restaurants with delicious gluten-free bread.

I start my day with gluten-free porridge oats - and I live off oatcakes. Sourcing exciting gluten-free alternatives has become my mission. It has led me to experiment with lesser-known products in flour form, for example teff, quinoa, amaranth, coconut and buckwheat. These products are extremely versatile in sweet and savoury recipes - a wonderful alternative to flour-based products. I find I've always got teff flour on hand for when I cook up a Sunday lunch for my family, who are also gluten-free.

serves 4

chef-patron, Le Gavroche

We all love tinned sardines and I am no different but as a chef I like to do something a little special. Make this and variations of it as a late-night snack or even as a full meal with a big salad. Healthy, nutritious, speedy and delicious. It's important to have good bread, and the egg on top must be runny to make a rich creamy sauce.

My cupboard is full of tins for emergency snacks or to make little bites with drinks: sardines, mackerel, cod liver, anchovies, pate and tapenades sit alongside a host of home-made pickles, chutneys and jams.

The ultimate sardine toastie

serves 1

executive chef, Chiltern Firehouse

I have three kids, so all my special ingredients are kept in a dark and hard-to-reach cupboard; you almost need a flashlight when you go in there. I have quite a lot of obscure Japanese condiments - I used to live round the corner from a Japanese cafe-store and I have 30 to 40 different products. There's some quite random stuff: Chef Massimo Bottura did a small production of balsamic vinegar and he gave me a little bottle - there's no label on it but it's very high grade. I have all kinds of crazy olive oil too.

Because of my schedule I can't be as adventurous as I used to be: I cook a lot of Italian and Japanese for the kids. I started making these soft scrambled eggs at home. Now it's a breakfast dish at the restaurant.

serves 2

chef and co-owner, Koya

Japanese teas and herbal teas are always among my store-cupboard essentials; some are very precious to me as I buy them from tea shops in Japan.

At home I often make miso soup. This dish is inspired by the regional miso soup in the south of Japan, where it is served cold. But of course here in Britain I mostly make it hot!

serves 2

executive chef, Fino-Barrafina

If I come home late at night, I'll make a chilli garlic pasta, something very quick. Good piquillo peppers are amazing, and for me it's very easy to make something with them - they're always on the menu in our restaurants. I love anchovies and I always make sure I have really good ones; sun-dried tomatoes, confit artichokes, white asparagus too. I shop a lot at Brindisa and at I Camisa on Old Compton Street. And I often go to Borough Market and Maltby Street as they are on my way home. I buy 20 jars of everything so I never run out.

serves 4

Photographs: Richard Nicholson

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