Good food is one of life’s simple pleasures.  A cliché but true all the same.  Yet all too often going out to eat seems to be about dressing up and showing off – and I’m talking about the stuff going on on the plate and in the kitchen rather than the people who eat it.

I hate formality and pretence. My favourite places to eat in the world are all in Italy – Da Cesare in Alba; L’Oste Scuro and Al Pompere in Verona.  They are brilliant, not simply because they serve delicious food, but because they are fun and relaxed.

My menu is made up of the same simple rustic dishes I enjoy when I go to Italy - unfussy yet utterly delicious, a million miles away from the complicated fancy fare you would normally expect to eat in Park Lane.