My Haven SIMON RIMMER

The chef and presenter of Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, 55, in the living room of his Manchester home

1 CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Since we moved here 18 years ago, my wife Ali and I have made this large open-plan area from our kitchen, living room and dining room. We share it with our two children, Flo, 20, and Hamish, 15, and our dog Cali. I love this family photo of us taken in the pretty seaside town of Del Mar in California – it makes me happy whenever I look at it. It’s one of our favourite places, with great beaches, hills and a good vibe.

The locals are really friendly and there are hardly any tourists.

2 MY OLD CHINA

When I was studying fashion and textile design at Leicester University, I’d buy bric-a-brac like these giraffes at markets, and collected teapots, cups and saucers. I really like the Domino tea set on the coffee table, made by TG Green. I’ve also bought some naff egg cups and Art Deco vases over the years, a lot of which are now in my parents’ loft. I’m far more selective now!

3 ART AND GRAFT

Ali and I met working in a restaurant in Manchester in 1989. I opened my first restaurant there a year later and she came to work for me part-time. In our early days of going out we went to an exhibition by artist Paula Rego in a small gallery in Liverpool, and we said if we could ever afford a piece of hers we’d treat ourselves. We bought this etching, called Three Blind Mice, for our 21st wedding anniversary last year.

4 WATCH WITH FATHER

My dad’s family came from Lake Como in Italy and my mum’s were from Liverpool. Dad gave me this old Oris Swiss watch when I was 18 and I’ve always loved the look of it. His parents gave it to him on his 21st birthday, so it’s now a family heirloom. It’s fragile and I’d hate to break it, so I keep it in an old cardboard box that Flo made for us at school when she was six.

5 GUILTY PLEASURES

I was a big fan of the flamboyant TV chef Graham Kerr, who was known as the Liberace of the food world, and a friend gave me his Galloping Gourmet Cookbook a few years ago after finding it in a second-hand bookshop. He definitely inspired me to become a TV chef, but his recipes are full of selfindulgent ingredients that none of today’s healthconscious foodies and chefs would dream of adding, like vast quantities of cream, fat and clarified butter.

6 KENNY’S FROM HEAVEN

This shirt was signed for my 50th birthday by my hero, Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish. He wrote on it, ‘To Simon – only 50?’ Like Kenny I was at Hillsborough that terrible day in 1989, and over the years he’s become a great friend. I loved football as a kid and wrote in an essay that for the perfect birthday I’d like Kenny to come to my party; then he turned up to my 50th! I was going to play in a charity game at Anfield with him once, but I snapped my Achilles tendon a month before and ended up on crutches.