Ours is a classic Victorian house. You walk up a flight of stairs to the kitchen and living room, which can be divided by those enormous doors – ours are always open. The dining room, downstairs, is where I do all my shoots – it has a glass roof, and looks out over the garden.
I thought we’d be forever spilling soup on the way down the stairs to the dining room, so we knocked out the chimney breast and put in a dumb waiter. I put my sister’s son in it once, to her horror: “Allegra, don’t ever do that ever again!” Of course, it’s all any kid who comes to the house wants to do, but since having my own kid, I see where she was coming from.
The kitchen table came with the house. The previous owners bought it with the house too – the table just belongs to the house. It’s the focal point of family life. And the knife drawer in it... well, if there was an energy that emitted from inanimate objects, there’d be a kind of hum around that drawer. So much going on in it: knives from the best part of 60 countries, all for different purposes, all with different stories.
My fridge, behind me covered in mementoes, is a Liebherr, a bloody great robot-size fridge; an excellent piece of kit. Chefs need big fridges, but it’s also like a huge love letter to my friends and family, both living and dead. I’d be half the person I am without these people – it’s important for me to have them all nearby.
My mom died when I was 17. I’m now 46. And that is her white Magimix on the windowsill. Can you imagine the beating it has taken? I’ve done weddings for 200 people – regularly. Countless hours of professional work, not to mention domestic cooking. And it still works.
After my mum died, it was agreed that I could have her scrapbook – it was a sticky, tatty, orange photo album. I left it with my publishers when we were doing the first Leon book, and the inevitable happened. The cleaner mistook it for rubbish and it landed up in a barge halfway up the Thames headed for landfill. It was like going through the seven stages of grief again. Not sure why, but I had scanned in one page, so I had it framed and as you can see now sits pinned to my fridge. It’s my mama juju in my kitchen.
Those cloth carrots above the window caught my eye in a market in Oaxaca. My mom had a thing for fake produce – plastic grapes in particular. She set up a wine bar called Albertine in Shepherd’s Bush in 1978 and ran it for a year before selling it to a chap called Giles. I’ve just bought it back from him. I don’t think I’ve done anything, apart from having my daughter, and being pregnant with the next one now, that I’ve been more proud of than buying back that bar.
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Allegra McEvedy is a London-based chef, restaurateur, broadcaster and cookbook author. Wine bar and local eatery Albertine has just been relaunched; albertine.london
