The Ultimate Kitchen Playlist

A great playlist should be truly eclectic, moving across a wide range of genres, chronologies and cultures – in defiance of algorithmically composed mixes, which always seem to make very obvious connections of things which are all broadly similar.

I always cook to music, certainly at home, and at work during the periods where we're not in service – just gearing up for it, or cleaning down afterwards. I used to be very specific in what I would play, or what I would allow to be played, but these days I'm much more easy-going.

I work most evenings – and have four children – which is not conducive to regular gig attendance. However, we have the absurdly talented Mark Kavuma in residence every Tuesday at Brunswick House, and it's one of the great pleasures of my life to sneak down and hover at the back of the crowd, and just feel the music reverberating through my body. To hear instruments played in a small place by formidably gifted individuals is an ecstatic experience, one I cannot recommend highly enough.