How Foragers' Kitchen is bringing organic and local plant based produce to Sneinton Market

Tell us about your background, and how you came into professional cooking… 

I’ve always been into food. One of my first professional jobs was working in a really posh restaurant. Before that, I worked in smaller French bistros, and a Chinese restaurant. So I’ve always been interested in it, and that comes from cooking when I was young, with my mum. My mum turned veggie for a few years, which I think was quite inspiring because it was very different from what my friends at school were eating. 

I kind of burned out from cooking, and became an electrician for five years, from about the ages of twenty to 25, but was still cooking during that time. Then, I quit that, moved to Loughborough and became a barista. After that, I became a coffee roaster, because I became slightly obsessed with coffee. That didn’t end so well, but going from knowing nothing about coffee to becoming a pretty good roaster gave me the confidence to start this place. 

People often talk about whether vegan diets are growing or receding. Currently, the stats bear out that they’re growing in popularity. Do you have an opinion on that, or experiences with it? 

I think I would have had an opinion a while ago, but over time I’ve realised that good food speaks for itself. I don’t really follow the vegan scene like I used to anymore.

Unless you’ve been restricting yourself from using dairy, meat, eggs and cheese, I don’t think you’ve got the incentive to understand how to satiate those flavours, because you’ve always got the breaker of going back to, say, chicken, when you really want it. I’ve gone down the line of trying to ensure I was satiating in the same way that ‘chicken’ was, because I suffered through not having it. 

So this place really does satisfy meat eaters, cheese eaters, vegetarians and pescatarians all the same. I’ve never swayed anyone with a good argument, but I have turned a few people vegan just from cooking for them, in close proximity. If you feel like you’re compromising flavour for nutrition, you’re not going to do it. So, if I can remove the worry that you’re never going to get decent food again, it sparks more inspiration than a conversation, or finger wagging.

A lot of people are struck by how cool Forager’s Kitchen looks inside, especially its many shelves. What was the process of deciding on that?

Well, I came in here, painted the floor, and first it was completely empty, so I started imagining how I’d cook, how I want to stand, and where I want to be looking out, because I’m going to be spending a lot of time in here. And I kept on looking at the wall, and thinking, ‘This is going to be my pantry, where I want to store all my spices, ferments, pickles’ – I wanted it to be my wizard’s pantry, you know? It’s nice to be able to store that much visibly, because you don’t have to write a list of where everything is. It’s all there, to grab. 

You’ve started working with businesses close by, in Sneinton Market and venues beyond, like Movers. Did you arrive wanting to do that?

I knew no one here – the community was bubbling away anyway. Martin’s workshop next door – the communities that surround By Our Hands We Make Our Way are amazing. Sarah Manton and her fierce leadership of the tenant community, Cam at The Grove and his people – we’ve all become very close. I think I’m trying my best to glue them together – use this place as a stomping ground for meetings, for overflow… I want to cater for venues that don’t do food, but might need it for events. For example, I'm catering a couple fundraisers happening in the Avenues. And I'm of course partnering with the other food businesses – we're always collaborating with Paddy at Working Man's Kitchen, with Luisa's Vegan Chocolates, and most recently with Mahalia and Jowayne at Yellow Yard (we're working on some jerk seitan).

What place does foraging have, exactly, in how you source ingredients? 

Some of it’s foraged. For my dandelion ‘honay’ (as we call it), for example, I picked about a thousand heads of dandelions. A friend of mine has come with foraged goods, one of which was wild garlic. 

But the reason we’re called Foragers’ is not necessarily because we want to make foraged goods. I’m not sure it’s entirely ethical to be taking from what little nature has left for a business as small as we are. The reason we’re called Foragers’ is because we want to support a local food growing network, all the way from fruits and vegetables, to grains, and everything in between. Anything we can get as local as possible.

More in my mind is food security. I think it’s a good thing to support more diverse growing in the farms around us, and more of it coming directly from where it is growing, into the city itself. 

What’s your process for evolving the menu? 

I’ve got lots of inspiration – things bubbling away in my brain that I need to get out. I just haven’t got the time at the moment. I’m developing the recipes I have into better versions of what they already are. 

I also want to mention that we want to promote the organic side of things. Seeing what an organic farm can produce, not just in terms of its agricultural output, but also in terms of its environment, is amazing. The hedges, trees, woods, fields – because they’re not sprayed, coincide with lots of rare birds, butterflies, bees… The revelation for me was that when you buy organic food, you pay into a system where you don’t receive those sprays, and chemicals, which aren’t just harming you but are also designed to kill everything around the field bar the crop.

What’s next for Foragers’ Kitchen? Anything else you want to talk about? 

Yes, the Locavore Market! In light of us being here, and being mindful of taking from lots of local places, we want to promote them by bringing them here. The Locavore Market is coming soon, and is organised by me, and Dee from Minor Oak co-working space. Local farms will be invited, jam makers, whisky, kombucha makers, all these types of things we consume, and can source locally – we’ll be inviting people to come to Sneinton Market, and use it in a similar way to how it started – as a produce market. 

Find Forager’s Kitchen at Unit 32, Sneinton Market, NG1 1DW. Darcy and Dee are looking for traders in-and-around the East Midlands who are available to participate in the summer 2026 Locavore Market. Find the expression of interest form here and follow online for more information.

@foragerskitchen_sneinton