10 questions with Jackson Boxer

Jackson Boxer is the chef and restaurateur behind Vesper on Exmouth Market, Dove in Notting Hill, Brunswick House in Vauxhall, and below Stone Nest on the edge of Chinatown. His restaurant group, Boxer Restaurants, has been named as one of CODE’s Happiest Places to Work 2026, in partnership with Planday.

You can find Jackson’s restaurants Brunswick House, Dove, and Vesper on the CODE app at 25% off total bill.

What’s the most underrated dish on your menu?

Grilled octopus and glazed Tamworth collar just hit this week. We get big 5kg octopusses up from the South Coast, where they’re increasingly an invasive predatory species, and poach the tentacles in olive oil with garlic and thyme. We fillet out the pig’s loin where it hits the neck, and marinade it overnight in a housemade shio koji made from Chinese red rice, white port, star anise and cardamom, then hit it hard over the grill to develop a beautiful caramelized crust. It’s served with a punchy Cantonese style mustard flavoured with lager and orange zest. I wouldn’t say it’s underrated, but it only just landed on the menu at Vesper and it’s giving me a lot of joy right now.

Where’s your favourite place to go after hours?

below Stone Nest obviously, still the best late night vibe in Soho – wild, anarchic, spontaneous and dancey exuberance. Besides that, I have a great fondness for Bar Kick on Exmouth Market, which I’m seeing a lot of right now, as you might imagine.

What’s the best thing you can do in London with £20?

Right now, my favourite breakfast in London is Far East on Gerrard Street – fresh salted beancurd with preserved vegetables, peanuts, dried shrimp and chilli oil for £5.80 is an absolute steal, and they’re open till 5am.

What’s your secret London tip?

The ceramics room upstairs at the V&A. It’s elite and no one goes there. Feels like a secret to be in on.

What’s your favourite thing to cook when you’re off?

My favourite things to cook are the kind of simple rustic dishes – chicken broths, lentil soups, chickpea stews, just delicious and comforting and nourishing – which for some reason don’t lend themselves to fast-paced restaurant cookery in quite the same way, but I adore them at home.

Which kitchen task do you like most and least?

I kind of love everything in the kitchen, but especially slightly fiddly tasks like fish and meat butchery – breaking down a big 100kg tuna straight from the boat for instance – which requires a great deal of care and respect to get right, and feels precise and exacting. The only jobs I don’t like are sticky ones – I hate working with syrups and caramels and meringues. That sugary tackiness really sets my teeth on edge.

What’s your favourite and least favourite ingredients?

I love fruit, I get supremely excited about it, for me it remains remarkable that something as delicious, as bright, as vivid, as perfect as a really beautiful apple can just hang there from a tree, waiting to be plucked and bitten into. My least favourite ingredient is sugar, or at least processed white sugar. It’s so aggressive and dominant and one-dimensional, and flattens and deadens so many more interesting flavours. I try and use it as little as possible, or, failing that, caramelise it first, which makes it much more complex and interesting.

Which CODE offers are you going to be snapping up?

The Shaston Arms [50% off food]. I love it and find myself in Soho fairly regularly.

Where do you go when you want to splurge?

Paris. Eurostar has got a lot more expensive, but the restaurant culture there continues to delight, both in its creativity and variety, and the elite calibre of produce, but also compared to London for what incredibly good value it is. It’s more than worth the train fare.

When you’re not working in a restaurant or eating in a restaurant, where will we find you?

My days off are spent almost entirely in the company of my children, who enjoy similar pastimes to me. Weekends invariably follow the same trajectory – Italo for coffee, into town for dim sum, ice cream at Gelupo, then a long movie, generally at the Prince Charles Cinema.

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