A visit to the kitchen of master chef Chris Onions was a ‘bonus buy’ for me. I wasn’t strictly looking for cooking experiences but when offered the opportunity to photograph in Chris’ kitchen it was a no brainer.

Chris is chef-in-residence at Trill Farm where he runs the Old Dairy Kitchen as his own enterprise. Prior to Trill he had virtually worked his way through kitchens across the globe, before returning to the UK to take up a position as a chef and teacher at Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall’s River Cottage.

The time spent at River Cottage reinforced his beliefs in working closely with the producers and using ingredients grown to the highest environmental and ethical standard. In a search to pursue this with more personal freedom, he moved to Trill a few years ago – as it happens which is also just about next door! Here Chris makes use not only of the resources available on the farm such as Kate and Ash’s market garden, but also the more natural resources such as the fungi, game and herbs of surrounding woodland.

Chris showcases his skills to the public in regular suppers, whilst also catering for the daily lunchtime meal for staff at Trill and provides amazing (his word!)  Farm Lunches on Wednesdays and Saturdays when he is open to the public selling bread and seasonal deli products from the farm. He also maintains an educational side to his work with a variety of cooking courses and, born out of work within a social cooperative on a small farm in Sweden which offered care and training for people in need of some help, he offers hands-on skills and experience in his kitchen to adults who are not currently in education, employment or training. A good guy – more than worth his place in the agrarian renaissance story! (Though still can’t get my head around the so called ‘sport’ of pheasant shooting)

For the latest on Chris see his Twitter page or contact Chris via chris@trillfarm.co.uk

[Double clicking on any of the images below will open up that image up in a slideshow format. You can then run the slide show using ‘left’ and ‘right’ buttons.  Personally I prefer to go also to full screen having opened the slide show – F11 on my PC, don’t forget to get out of full screen is the same button , not ESC!]