THE AIM OF THIS BOOK is to shift the role of vegetables in your kitchen from supporting actor to star of the show by imbuing them with the main character energy they deserve.

This is an attitude I picked up from my time as executive chef of Bubala, a Middle Eastern-inspired vegetarian restaurant in London. When it first opened in 2019, the vegetarian food scene in London was pretty dismal. Bubala actually didn’t advertise itself as a vegetarian restaurant, so when the doors first opened, the general public seemed confused. Many walked out when they couldn’t spot any meat on the menu; a few even emailed the restaurant to ask if we’d cook them a steak if they brought it in. But a bring-your-own-steak restaurant Bubala was not. We held fast, and sure enough, in came the next wave of customers, who didn’t even fully register that it was a vegetarian restaurant at first, but were so bowled over by the bold, high-impact flavours they found, paired with the simple treatment of vegetables, that it seemed kind of irrelevant. For me, this is where the magic happened.

Let me be clear: I am not a vegetarian. I like to eat meat from time to time, mostly when I’m at a restaurant where I know how and from where the meat is sourced. When I’m eating at home, I’ll spend my money on the best vegetables I can find and cook and present the produce in a way that champions it, just the way it is.

The recipes in this book are born out of this spirit of simplicity and require very little restaurant-level technique. They are simply direct expressions of very delicious vegetables. For too long, vegetarian food has been seen as a bit of an afterthought, and my aim in this book is to raise the stakes (pardon the pun) and show that, by cooking vegetables in the way you’ll find here, you won’t even think about meat.

Truly, I am just here to tell you why vegetables are a really good time.