FOOD FILE: They're the new boys on the block, the fresh faces of food on the BBC, and they couldn't be more different. Marie-Claire Digbymeets Valentine Warner (above) and Levi Roots
WHAT POSSESSES a young man to allow himself to be photographed fishing in a river wearing a pair of gaudy underpants and little else? Being commanded to do so by a media-savvy publicist – and the possibility of making the cover of Observer Food Monthly, just as his first cookery TV show and book were launched – were enough to convince Valentine Warner, the very properly brought up son of a diplomat and MP, to drop his trousers.
"I knew that to get the cover he'd have to do something outrageous," says Fiona Smith, head of publicity at Octopus Publishing, who masterminded the stunt that did indeed get Warner the cover story to coincide with the launch of his BBC TV series, What To Eat Now. That was just over a year ago, and Warner was back on TV screens this summer with the follow-up, What To Eat Now: Summer, in which he travels around the UK, meeting up with an array of colourful characters who share his delight in eating locally produced, seasonal food.
In Dublin to do publicity for the book that accompanies the second series, What To Eat Now; More Please!, Warner seems an unlikely candidate for the title of "TV's new pin-up chef", as bestowed upon him by the Observer. He's charming, urbane, a little bit irreverent, and boyish for his 37 years; but he's no Jean-Christophe Novelli.
However, it’s still hard to believe he was once “a fat kid” – his words. “I didn’t grow until very late. I was called Fat Val at school and I could always be found with my pockets stuffed full of crisps and Mars bars.”
Warner seems bemused by the interest in his looks rather than his books, and says Pat Llewellyn, the grande dame of cookery TV who is credited with launching the on-screen careers of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, told him he was “quite weird” when he did a screen test for her. “She said she wasn’t sure what to do with me, ‘but don’t go away’.” He didn’t, eventually inveigling his way into Llewellyn’s production company, Optomen TV, on a three-month trial. “We wrote a proposal for a show together and the BBC commissioned it after a month.”
Despite Llewellyn’s initial misgivings, Warner proved to be a natural in front of a camera, just as he’d taken to cooking pretty much instinctively. Having studied art at college, Warner had been working as a portrait artist for five years, getting plenty of commissions, when he made a snap decision to take up cooking.
“Literally overnight I made the decision. I decided I’d walk into a restaurant kitchen and say ‘I’ll shut up and do what I’m told’.” That approach didn’t work on Soho restaurateur and chef Alastair Little, who told Warner he wouldn’t give him a job until he had more experience. But Martin Hadden took him on at the Halcyon in Holland Park, and after a spell there, Warner went back to Little, who he describes as “an absolute genius” who was “incredibly generous with his knowledge”.
“I very quickly realised at the Halcyon that I didn’t want to muck around with food. It was great and it tasted wonderful, but it was too theatrical. There was too much fiddling. I wanted something more straightforward.”
The macho kitchen culture he encountered at the Halcyon didn’t suit Warner either. “There is a kind of underlying hot, frustrated aggression that goes on, and that’s what fuels you forwards. But I just thought, ‘this is not the place for me’, which is why I don’t call myself a chef. I call myself a cook, because I wasn’t prepared to go through the system; I didn’t want to end up having a restaurant of my own.”
Owning a restaurant would certainly have interfered with Warner’s great love – fishing – a pastime he indulges in as often as he can. “I really care about fish and fishing. When I fish, inevitably I am just feeding myself, so it’s not having a huge impact. The sea is a very delicate place.”
Fishing expeditions have taken him to Mexico several times, and its cuisine is one that fascinates him. “It’s really misunderstood cooking; chillies are really misunderstood here. It can be heavy, but it can also be very delicate – you’ve got these amazing sauces that hunched-over little old ladies take four days to make.”
Travel has always been part of Warner’s life – he spent the first four years of his life in Tokyo – and he has travelled extensively, cultivating his interest in food. “My brother and I were eating snails at the age of five; we were very adventurous eaters and didn’t have to be coaxed into trying anything.”
He does, however, have strong feelings about food retaining its integrity. “Cook with an understanding of environment – the idea being that if I’m picking blackberries and pigeons are staring down from the oak tree at the top of my head, then I’ll shoot a pigeon and they can both end up on the plate together.
“Even when you’re cooking foreign things, understand about that place and the ingredients they use. Don’t start firing in random things. I’m not anti-fusion cooking, but I don’t understand it. I don’t want to eat rabbit with pineapple and feta cheese.”
What to Eat Now: More Please! , by Valentine Warner, is published by Mitchell Beazley, £20