From frying pans to head torches: how chef James Brun learned to cook from the land
James didn't plan to be a chef at five; he drifted into it after art history and a spell teaching English in Barcelona. He landed at Cricket in London with no professional experience and learned fast. “On the stoves within two months,” he says. It was a place that gave young cooks responsibility and taught him how to make food taste, in the bluntest sense, good: the old rules about salt and butter. A stint at Fenn introduced him to fine-dining precision and rare-breed suppliers. But moving to Namayashi on the Isle of Lewis changed his relationship to ingredients. No fridges, off-grid harvests, and weekly deliveries taught him the real cost of a daikon: the weather, timing, and manual labour behind it. He stayed a year and left with a stubborn lesson — chefs should understand the whole food cycle. James spent just under a year in Japan, working stages and living with farming families in places like Kamiyama and Tokushima. Two concrete takeaways: The Teishoku rhythm — simple set meals that force technical rigour because “there’s nowhere to hide.” How to enhance flavour without leaning on salt: kombu, careful cooking, preserved peels and fermentations instead of “just caning salt.” He came back with a pantry of Japanese ideas: sedachi and yuzu varieties, kombu toasted into an intense, umami-rich powder, and techniques like tataki (fast searing) and kosho (fermented peel condiments). That's why his menus can read Japanese in spirit even when they're foraging-led Norfolk plates. Grounded Table is James's version of a travelling supper club: shared tables in fields and barns, seasonal tasting sequences, lots of small plates, and an emphasis on mixing people and provenance. He cooks with produce from his own Norfolk patch and local suppliers: organic lamb, fishermen's catch (when the sea cooperates), and Kentish cobnuts. James is candid about constraints. Weather and hosepipe bans hit his garden yields. Local fisheries export much of their best catch to France and Spain, and pub consolidation squeezes margins so independent suppliers struggle. He still shops at supermarkets when he needs to. But his aims are precise: more circular, community-minded food systems; a homestead run to teach kids how to grow; and a winter rhythm of learning new skills rather than burning out in a kitchen. He wants to scale what he does without losing the point: a menu that flexes with the season and an audience that leaves fuller and a little humbler about where their food came from.