Yotam Ottolenghi

The chef, restaurateur and cookbook author is one of the judges of the BBC’s Food and Farming Awards

From top: Russian eggs; Yotam outside

Parkway Greens; inspiring cookbooks

Earliest food memories

When I was about eight, I had a little children’s cookbook that had a recipe for a Russian egg. It was the simplest thing – you took out the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, mixed it with mustard and mayonnaise, then put it back. Another recipe was the Jewish equivalent of a sausage roll, called Moses in a Basket, using chicken or turkey. I remember making those and feeling very proud of myself.

Most memorable meal

It was 20 years ago, when I lived in Amsterdam. I drove to Belgium with two friends to eat at De Karmeliet ( dekarmeliet.be/en), a three-Michelinstarred restaurant in Bruges. It was in a beautiful, cavernous building and I had pressed duck. The thing I’ll never forget is the cheese trolley, which is not something I’d be very interested in these days; it had about 90 cheeses, so it took 15 minutes just to describe them! Our meal started at 9pm and went on until 1am, then we drove back to Amsterdam. It was the frst time that I’d been exposed to that sort of dining.

Favourite places to eat in London

This changes so often. One new place is Primeur ( primeurn5.co.uk) in Stoke Newington, a small wine bar with great food. It represents London’s food revolution because it’s on a residential street, is run by a couple of guys who have all the time in the world for the wine and the food, and is frequented by locals. The quality is superb.

The other place I often go to is a Turkish kebab place in Dalston called Mangal 1 ( mangal1.com) – they cook