I make a cracked wheat salad with masses of lemon juice and sliced fresh tomatoes. I buy my bulgar in Portobello Road Wholefoods where there is fast turnover.What would you class as your favourite kitchen implement?A short kitchen knife, with a curving two-inch blade for cutting and paring, very cheap. And when an apple is at its peak, why would you want anything else?Favourite herb?I love them all Flat-leafed parsley Large-leafed thyme. Bush basil ...And spice?Cinnamon.Fish?Turbot, roast till it springs to the touch. With olive oil or a buttery sauce on the side, not touching, so that you can dip in each piece of fish as you want.Shellfish?Crab. Raw, either sliced or quartered, with Maldon salt crystals and olive oil.Favourite vegetable?It has to be the potato.

Is it too passe to say Pink Fir Apple? Or Ratte? Or Roseval? With Maldon salt, olive oil, a scoop of raclette and a gherkin.And how about your favourite fruit?Every fruit as it reaches its peak There is nothing like an apricot at its peak Then there is nothing like a raspberry at its peak And nothing better than a strawberry at its peak. I love sashimi and grilled smoked eel with lots of soy sauce.What would you vote as your favourite salad vegetable?Fennel. But this is science, I complained, not cooking.What is your favourite food?Japanese food in California - in London it's often not good enough. Ah, he explained, it was a puree of steamed something, strained, reduced in a pan, then emulsified, added to something else, reduced again, then dripped into the soup. Then his partner, Richard Shepherd, recommended me to his suppliers and they all gave me credit.

I couldn't have got off the ground without them.What do you look for in a restaurant?I generally look for unhurried naturalness and simplicity. I think particularly of a place called Vipere, a two-hour drive into the hills beyond Lucca, where the owner used to take you out into the garden with him to pick the rocket.Do you have any pet hates about restaurant cooking?Yes, I do - its complication. But he came to the restaurant, and gave me the best advice: not to bring the kitchens up to the dining room; not to move the lavatories; to forget about the tables, no-one ever sees them, they are covered with a table cloth; but to buy the best, the very best chairs I could get I did what he said He was right. I asked one very famous chef (I won't give his name) what were these tiny green spots on his cauliflower soup. The best help I had was from the late Peter Langan, simply the sweetest, the loveliest, most generous of people.