“How do I make the best meal possible with no drama?” This was the question that chef Jesse Jenkins asked himself when planning the menu for a dinner in east London this Spring. Jesse, who is better known on social media as A Day In Paradise, had invited a group of friends to Brunwick East's Sky Farm, an urban growing project on a rooftop in Dalston. Many of his guests were chefs – including Jackson Boxer, Adam Byatt, Ben Lippett and Justin Tsang; a daunting prospect, I imagine – but, says Jesse, cooking for other cooks can be surprisingly straightforward. “They often just want a good home-cooked meal,” he says - something beautiful, but also inarguably delicious.
He concluded that grilled bavette steak, fried potatoes, a beautiful vegetable and salad would hit the spot – the kind of meal in which good produce can sing – and proceeded to make a handful of great ingredients as enjoyable as possible. Joined by writers Joel Golby and Ayishat Akanbi, florist Freddie Garland, film director Thea Sharrock, artist Jason Schulman, stylist Harriet Stewart and editor Harriet Verney, guests enjoyed simple, quality ingredients and dined family-style around a shared table.
Cooking for people, he says, is about imagining how you want them to feel – happy, nourished but also curious. “I like to bury flavours in layers,” he says, “so I salted the steaks for 24 hours to tenderise and give them a really good crust, then brushed them in mushroom garum and fried them in beef fat, sugar and soy for an intensely flavourful glaze.” Alongside, there were golden confit potatoes – sliced with a mandolin, fried low in butter for six hours - “and which every chef appreciates, because they know the work that goes in” – and two salads using Sky Farm leaves, a berry dressing, whole artichoke vinaigrette and radishes with top hats of herb butter.
The ingredients for this spread may have mostly been sourced in London, but its roots are clear to see, combining Jesse’s Californian sensibility (he grew up in Los Angeles) and French techniques picked up from working in professional kitchens on and off throughout his adult life. He is an omnivore, but takes pride in putting vegetables front and centre in any dish – his book Cooking with Vegetables (2025) may not be vegetarian, but firmly puts meat and fish in a supporting role and puts seasonal produce in the spotlight to vibrant effect, which underpins everything he makes. On Instagram, he has become known for his lulling, almost hypnotic videos that both capture the cookery process and result in a dish that he’s confident will propel people into the kitchen, “balancing the beautiful and visceral with the informative”. He resists bells and whistles, instead putting himself in the headspace of viewers who are often time poor, supermarket dependent and hungry for achievable ideas that evolve their repertoire without reinventing the wheel.
Jesse didn’t set out to work in food. “All I ever wanted to do was skateboard,” he says of his childhood self, “I loved my mom’s cooking, I loved eating food, I loved junk food – I was not interested in making it.” Skateboarding, he says, was his life; “I was sponsored at a young age, which really meant that companies gave me free stuff for me to go and film videos.” Realising in his late teens that life as a professional skateboarder might not materialise, he got a job at a restaurant. “I was a bus boy, expo, waiter – I did every job – but I just always hung out with the chefs. I was comfortable with them. And I wanted free food! And, I just asked lots of questions.”
When Jesse moved to London with a partner in the mid-noughties, he realised that restaurant work didn’t pay quite so well as it did in America where generous tipping is obligatory. “I had become obsessed with photography, because my whole job was a skateboarder had been to have my picture taken and make videos. I thought about cameras and editing and visual language all the time.” On a chance meeting this a fashion photographer, he became an assistant – first in music, then fashion – and eventually became a fashion photographer and director himself, for years. “There were a lot of question marks while I was shooting fashion, but I felt like I had answers when I was doing food,” Jesse reflects, “I felt like I had something to say. I felt confident. I knew what I was doing and why.” In essence, he felt more like himself. His pivot to making cookery films, like so many pivots, was prompted by lockdown. “My wife and I were at home, new parents, trying to work out how to keep a roof over our heads,” he says, “I thought vertical cookery videos were the worst thing ever, but I had all these recipes that I wanted to share – and I realised I even dreamt about food.” Something stuck.
Jesse’s videos stand apart from the myriad social media food reels. Shot in the west London kitchen he shares with his wife and two young children, they are serene, pared back and mesmerising, almost always without any voiceover, and maintain a laser focus on what is happening to the ingredients as he prepares them. Often, his wrist comes into view – slicing, stirring, swirling – with a tattoo that reads “TOO FAST”, a reminder of a very different previous life which has taught him so much. Tonally, they are a far cry from the skateboarding videos Jesse made in the 1990s, but he credits that time with being “a crash course in everything I needed to know for what I do now – self-shooting, highlighting my skill on film and being able to cut it in a satisfying way.”
The rooftop meal ends with madeleines – a dessert which, I realise, is very Jesse, who professes in his book to be more of a dessert eater than maker. “I loved my mom’s freshly baked cookies,” he smiles, “and the moment they arrive on the table. I’m a dad that likes to do that. It’s the best thing ever. Madeleines felt like they belonged in that family of dessert. With some no churn ice-cream and Sky Farm’s lavender honey? Come on. Amazing.”
Words by Mina Holland.
Photography by Anna Jay.
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