Happy Birthday Helen! Our ray of sunshine Helen ☀️ is celebrating her birthday, with our iconic Avenue interview!

What’s your ultimate comfort food? The one thing you’d eat in your PJs on a lazy Sunday? 
Having time to do a good breakfast, not just a fry up, but say Huevos Rancheros, Baked Mushrooms, Scrambled Egg with Smoked Salmon & Crispy Kale. Rostis, especially this time of year with leftover Sprouts & Roast Potatoes. Crispy Kale in your PJs? Fancy!

What’s the most surprising ingredient you’ve fallen in love with? Something you never expected to enjoy cooking with?
Nutritional yeast!!!! Brilliant for flavouring vegan dishes. I do a vegan mushroom quiche that is an absolute crowd pleaser & nutritional yeast makes it. Vegans listen up!

What’s your ultimate cooking hack that’ll totally level up your kitchen game? 
Purée garlic with your knife, best thing I ever learnt to do. The time I wasted on garlic crushers before then is time I will never get back. Knife Skills Class anyone?

You have a £50 budget at the supermarket to whip up a dinner party, what’s on the menu? 
Tomato Ceviche on Toasted Sourdough; Cod on Puy Lentils with Tenderstem Broccoli & Crispy Bacon; Salted Caramel Bavarois with Hazelnut Praline & Caramelised Oranges – the biggest cost is the cod, the rest is technique

We all love a cheeky takeaway now and then – what’s your go-to spot in London when you’re too tired to cook? 
There is an awesome fish & chip shop near me called Maria’s Fish, the queue is always out the door. That is my takeaway treat. A proper chippy with a queue out the door is basically a Michelin star in the takeaway world.

Imagine it’s your dream birthday meal – what’s on the menu, and where are you eating it? 
This is so hard, I’m going to jump countries for this one.  I would start with Ceviche in Peru, on the beach, made from freshly caught fish, which I did, washed down with a couple of Pisco Sours.  I would then go to Desnivel, a parrilla in Buenos Aires for the best steak & a good bottle of Malbec and then finish it off in Istanbul with the stickiest Baklava I could get my hands on. Forget birthday candles – we need flights!

Are there any foodie rules or trends you think are just total nonsense? (Looking at you, gold-leaf on everything…)
Hahaha – The “superfood”  label drives me nuts! There is no such thing as a superfood, it’s all marketing and an excuse to charge higher pricing. It’s just naturally occurring stuff that has a good nutritional value. There are so many food myths, I could go on for a long time, but that is my biggest bugbear.

If you could swap jobs with any chef in the world for one day, who would it be, and why?
To be honest, cheffing is hard and I admire anyone who is prepared to slave every day in a hot kitchen, working long hours for not enough money. That said, I love Ottolenghi & his cookbook Jerusalem made me go to Jerusalem in search of those flavours.

London’s packed with amazing restaurants – what’s your top hidden gem that we all need to try? 
There are a couple – Meson Don Felipe, tapas on The Cut, The Palomar – Jerusalem inspired fare in Soho. It used to be queue only, but since lockdown they now do bookings & for the best Pad Thai – Paolina, near Kings Cross

Lastly, what is your food nemesis?
Anything that creates a huge amount of food waste – when I was training, we did “turned” potatoes, which is shaping your potato into a rugby ball – you lose so much potato and it adds nothing to the dish!  I still have my turning knife, but thankfully, it’s unused. A turning knife gathering dust feels like the ultimate rebellion against unnecessary faff.

Helen, you’ve served up some foodie inspo — crispy kale, ceviche, and no more wasted potatoes! Happy birthday, and thanks for sharing your kitchen wisdom. Now, where’s the Pisco sour?!