Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
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 a great martini.
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 combining recipes and art.
00:00:00 Cider deserves a wine list
00:05:13 How chefs think about drink
00:08:04 Japan, saké, and the Chichibu obsession
00:11:35 Visceral writing, food and sex
00:18:38 Eating his sister's paints: a Dorset childhood
00:22:53 Alastair Little and the difference between cooks and chefs
00:29:11 Foraging is just understanding opportunity
00:32:14 Seasonal flings, France's decline, and Spain
00:36:55 Carbon-copy coffee shops and the matcha problem
00:41:41 Hepple: a chef builds a martini gin
00:45:46 Douglas fir, supercritical CO2, and green juniper
00:54:19 Nick Strangeway, in close-up
00:55:41 Kitchen in the Wild: what comes after Norway
01:03:56 What chefs and bartenders should learn from each other
01:06:42 The trouble with restaurants, and what Val's reading next
🍋🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves
☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15
🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.
🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15
📷 Follow me on Instagram - instagram.com/tristanstephenson
📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - thecuriousbartender.com
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 a great martini.
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 combining recipes and art.
00:00:00 Cider deserves a wine list
00:05:13 How chefs think about drink
00:08:04 Japan, saké, and the Chichibu obsession
00:11:35 Visceral writing, food and sex
00:18:38 Eating his sister's paints: a Dorset childhood
00:22:53 Alastair Little and the difference between cooks and chefs
00:29:11 Foraging is just understanding opportunity
00:32:14 Seasonal flings, France's decline, and Spain
00:36:55 Carbon-copy coffee shops and the matcha problem
00:41:41 Hepple: a chef builds a martini gin
00:45:46 Douglas fir, supercritical CO2, and green juniper
00:54:19 Nick Strangeway, in close-up
00:55:41 Kitchen in the Wild: what comes after Norway
01:03:56 What chefs and bartenders should learn from each other
01:06:42 The trouble with restaurants, and what Val's reading next
🍋🟩 Fever-Tree - For the very best mixers that taste pretty damn good even by themselves
☕ Algebra Drinks - The world's best coffee liqueur (partly because it's low in sugar - get 15% off at algebradrinks.com with the code CURIOUS15
🌾 Belvedere Vodka - Organic vodka, with substance, made from Polish rye and absolutely no additives.
🍷 Denver & Liely - The best glassware on the planet - get 15% off at denverandliely.com with the code CURIOUS15
📷 Follow me on Instagram - instagram.com/tristanstephenson
📚 I've written quite a few books on spirits and cocktails - thecuriousbartender.com
