My London: Quo Vadis Jeremy Lee

Home is…

I live in Hackney, home alone with an awful lot of pots and plates.  

Which shops do you rely on?

Labour and Wait for everything, Leila’s Shop for groceries, of course, and E5 Bakehouse for the best pastries in town. Maison Bertaux in Soho, too, because it’s so brilliant and it has an extraordinary bunch  of pastries. And I would also say delicatessen I Camisa & Son on Old Compton Street,  it’s just brilliant.  

What’s your London secret?  

I’m blessed to have the Secret Smokehouse just two doors down from where  I live in Hackney.  

Best meal you’ve had?  

Oh golly, gee, I think the best meal I’ve ever had was a dinner Simon Hopkinson cooked at Bibendum after it had just opened. It was a long time ago but it is what got me back into restaurants with a vengeance. We had Piedmontese peppers and poulet de Bresse.

Where would you most like to be buried?

I’m not going to be buried,  I want to be binned in a biodegradable bag.

Who is your hero?  

Deceased Terence Conran and alive-and-kicking Fergus Henderson  because we’re almost twins, we’re almost the same age and  I think what he did and does for British cooking is exceptional.  

Who is the most iconic Londoner in history?

I suspect Doctor Samuel Johnson. He wrote a two-volume dictionary and was an astonishing character of the 18th century, a man of great many letters and a phenomenal mind.  

Best thing a cabbie has ever said to you?

Get out. I’d had far too jolly a dinner and he just would not stop talking about things that I just really didn’t want to hear. I made a rude comment and so he slammed on the brakes and  told me to get out. It made me laugh so much.