Where the Chefs Eat: Anna Jones on the UK restaurants that have her heart

Anna Jones may be able to walk down the street with relative ease as she doesn’t do much television, but her reputation in the world of food is exceptional. Having started under Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen program, where she stayed and worked for seven years, Anna quickly established herself as a fantastic chef in her own right. A Guardian contributor, she used her writing to espouse her deep love of vegetables. A staunch vegetarian, she places verdure at the forefront of her work, continuing on to write some bestselling cookbooks, too. One: Pot, Pan, Planet and The Modern Cook’s Year grace many a kitchen bookshelf the country over and her latest release, Easy Wins, is set to do just as well. Regaled as the voice of modern vegetarian cooking by many, Anna is graceful, very understated and a delight to interview, as we sit in the beautiful Hackney home she shares with her husband and two children.

Easy Wins is broken down beautifully into 12 different chapters, each of which showcases 12 different ingredients that Anna admits she can’t live (or cook) without. She tells me, “Easy Wins is all about how I cook now for me and my family. I always want my food to be quick and easy but to be unreasonably delicious for the time and effort I put in. So, I pulled back and tried to look at the reasons why I think food tastes good and it’s because I was relying on these flavour-packed, everyday ingredients. But I was using them in interesting and unexpected ways to boost the flavour of the meals we eat at home.”

“These are the things I just can’t cook without, and I see them as the easy wins,” explains Anna. From lemons to capers, miso to mustard, olive oil to onions, these 12 items “are all in your pantry or on the top shelf of your fridge. And they ask nothing of you,” she says. “They are the things that amplify flavour very quickly and give you a gorgeous meal. I use them most often in my kitchen to make food taste great and they seem to be favourites for almost everyone I talked to, the ones that friends use the most to help them cook the best food. They are relatively affordable and easily available and they add a real boost of flavour that I love.” And, while the 12 easy wins themselves may seem like everyday items, the recipes that Anna gifts her readers are far from plain. Smoky mole-spiced confit tomatoes and sweet pickled pie, koftas with lime buttered rice and confit garlic Caesar salad – it’s a book that you could leave to fall open on your lap and you’ll land on a delicious, enticing and surprisingly uncomplicated dish.

To mark the publication of Anna’s new book, she gives her top five restaurants around the country that “are not specific vegetarian restaurants, but they are places where I trust their cooking so much and I know that if I went in and there was only two vegetarian things on the menu, I can order them and they will be delicious.”

Hearth at Heckfield Place

Me and my husband went to Heckfield Place as a treat a few years ago and I just felt like I was in heaven. The artwork on the walls, the big lake for swimming – it is a heavenly, heavenly place and we just had the most amazing time. I love Skye [Gyngell’s] cooking, and I’m a huge fan of hers, as I’m sure anyone who has been to Petersham Nurseries is. I think the way she cooks is so intuitive and so from the heart and uncomplicated, and egoless because it’s all about celebrating the ingredients. Skye really lets the ingredients do the talking and that’s the kind of food I love to eat. Hearth is the restaurant at Heckfield Place that is centred around cooking over fire and the combination of that and the incredible ingredients that they grow on their farm is stunning.

Who comes here

Fans of Skye flock here but so do those wanting a luxurious weekend away, while others book in just to eat there. It is popular amongst art lovers, too, because of the personal collection of owner Gerald Chan that hangs on all the walls.

Best table in the restaurant

There are these little bench seats at a counter that face directly onto the fire, which I think are great; but my husband and I don’t get much time on our own so we had a cosy table in the back corner. There’s lots of sheepskins and we had a little round table for two, which was perfect.

Best time to come

There just can’t be a bad time but, if you can stay and make an overnight visit of it, then do. I know when I mention high-end places in my newsletters, I can get in trouble, so I emphasise this is not every day for me, and it’s very much a treat, but it honestly doesn’t feel like a hotel. It feels like if your ultimate stylish friend came into millions, this would be the house they’d design. And the artwork? I stood looking at each one as if I was in a gallery.

Dish to order

I remember eating this wedge of squash with brown butter and sage, a real classic combination, and it’s nothing we’ve not heard of before, but it was just transcendent. It was 10 out of 10 perfect. I should mention that I am vegetarian and have been for nearly 15 years. Skye cooks a lot with vegetables, which I love. If you look at restaurants now, it’s night and day from 10 years ago. So many chefs have come round to the fact that you can take a beautiful pumpkin or an amazing cabbage or a cauliflower and it can be just as celebrated as a steak or piece of fish.

Malverley’s Farm and Dining

Malverley’s is just so lovely. The head chef is a man called Hugo Harrison, who used to work at Jamie Oliver, as I did, and he actually helped me test the recipes for my last book. Hugo and I spent a year in my kitchen just before he went to Malverleys. I was heavily pregnant and we were testing and experimenting with recipes, and I was hearing all about him setting it up and what he was going to grow in the garden, so I feel very connected to it as a place. And when we went there last summer it did not disappoint. It was just the most wonderful meal, so marvellous, and with a setting right alongside the beautiful countryside garden. There’s an amazing homeware shop there as well and a little café and deli.

Who comes here

It’s a real local hangout but well worth a detour if you’re anywhere near North Hampshire.

Best table in the restaurant

This has a very beautiful indoor restaurant that really brings the outside in. There are lots of gigantic dried alliums hanging from the ceiling, and when it’s warm enough, there is outside seating on this beautiful terrace with a pergola, which we actually sat under. It looks out onto the lovely garden, so that’s a really special spot.

Best time to come

This a couple of hours from where I live but I would literally drive there just for lunch and back again. And we drive to Cornwall a lot so, in my mind, this has become a new lunch spot for us.

Dish to order

What Hugo does is he grows lots of the ingredients in the lovely garden and it’s a very simple menu but it’s another one that is all about showcasing amazing, fresh ingredients. Hugo cooks in such a thoughtful way and he is someone who really, really just wants to emphasise the ingredients. His dad is a chef and he’s got this wonderful cooking heritage – he cares so much about what he does. He’s from Suffolk and he has this real Englishness to the way he cooks. There’s lots of lovage and camomile used, for example. We had his bread that is literally one of the best breads I’ve ever eaten in my life. He also makes his own butter. We were there in the spring and we had the most incredible ricotta gnudi with courgettes and a lovage oil; it was unbelievably delicious.

Grace and Savour at Hampton Manor

Again, this is another special treat of a restaurant. It’s not somewhere you go for weeknight Wednesday supper. It’s in a beautiful hotel near Birmingham, which is my homeland; it’s where I was born. I found it because I went up there with a friend who is a yoga teacher called Naomi and she did a retreat there, while I did the food, and it was just heaven. So, Grace and Savour is quite refined, but it was just one of the best meals I’ve had in the last couple of years. The head chef, David Taylor, is really driven a lot, I think, by the Nordic style of cooking so expect lots of pickles and ferments. Talking to him, I felt that deep, loving passion he had for every plate he produced, and we talked a lot about where everything came from.

Who comes here

Grace and Savour has a Michelin star, and I think it got it very quickly after opening so you get a lot of food lovers from all over the world here, even those not from that part of the country.

Best table in the restaurant

They offer a “counter dining experience” which is great for those who are curious and want to see all the action in the kitchen as it happens.

Best time to come

They have amazing garden suites to stay in so do a weekend if you can, especially if you’re travelling there from afar. They are absolutely beautiful but, again, this is one for an anniversary or special occasion; this is where I send friends who ask about where to go for a 40th birthday or Mum’s 70th.

Dish to order

A fermented mushroom broth, which has so many wonderful and deep layers of flavour. I believe there are some days when it’s not a tasting menu, but I think in general that’s what they do so you may have to just let them feed you! I’m not someone who goes for tasting menus and usually prefer loads of plates on the table, lots of arms reaching over each other, but this is my exception.

Sonny Stores, Bristol

This is the kind of restaurant I like to go to all the time. It’s a really friendly, neighbourhood place that feels like you’re at a friend’s house. It’s big bowls of pasta, really uncomplicated food, glasses of wine, and it’s not fancy, but everything is knock-out delicious. It’s on a residential side street in Bristol so it’s not on a big main road. It almost feels like you’re walking into someone’s living room and, if I ever had a restaurant of my own, this is the feeling I’d want to create. Anytime I’m anywhere near Bristol, I make sure I get into Sonny Stores. This is one of those rare restaurants where I feel like anything I order from the menu will be delicious.

Who comes here

Sonny Stores is a real local spot because it isn’t an obvious find.

Best table in the restaurant

This is quite a small restaurant but I always love a window seat. There are these two big windows so you can sit facing out and watch everybody go by. I quite like looking into the kitchen normally, but I do like looking out of Sonny Stores. It’s a cosy little restaurant but one of the tables next to the window would definitely be my choice.

Best time to come

Anytime, though I tend to have lunch there.

Dish to order

Like all the restaurants I’ve listed here, I’ve gone for places with menus that change a lot because of the seasonal and local nature of the produce, so it’s really difficult to pick out exactly what you should have off the menu. What I love about Sonny’s is they do the most delicious pizzas. There are just three pizzas on the menu – a margarita pizza, Bianca and a Rossa. My son will sit and think he’s absolutely made it with a margarita and my husband will have a bowl of pasta. Last time we went, I had a really delicious courgette stuffed pasta and my husband had a socca (a chickpea pancake) and we shared everything with lots of salads and then tiramisu for dessert, which is my favourite ever dessert.

Upstairs at Landrace, Bath

I love this because it’s amazing seasonal cooking and a hidden gem amongst the Bath stone. They sell their baked goods downstairs, and it’s not uncommon for them to sell out of everything long before their official closing time. Upstairs is just gorgeous, though. It’s so cosy, and, again, it’s my sort of food.

Who comes here

Before Upstairs opens for lunch service, it’s a sort of laidback extension of the bakery downstairs so where people have their delicious coffee and some breakfast pastries and then it sort of transforms at midday into a lunch spot, where you’ll find lots of locals and those who have driven to find it specially. The reputation of Landrace is really spreading fast now.

Best table in the restaurant

I would say the best seat is by the window with the beams of light coming through.

Best time to come

Lunchtime, for sure.

Dish to order

It isn’t strictly a dish but their bread and butter is unmatched and it’s served with little pickles and ferments. People literally come from across the country for their bread and butter but the menu has lots of delights like Torbay prawns, fresh turbot and Neal’s Yard cheeses to choose from.

Easy wins: 12 flavour hits, 125 delicious recipes, 365 days of good eating by Anna Jones (Published by 4th Estate on 14th March, £28). Photography by Matt Russell.