Valentine Warner (born 1972) is a chef. He started his television career on the BBC in Autumn 2008 with What to Eat Now, a cookery programme based on his book of the same name.
Valentine Warner trained as a portrait painter before putting down the brush to pick up the spoon. He worked in London restaurants for eight years under such chefs as Alastair Little and Rose Cararina, before setting up a private catering company Green Pea.
With a strong focus on robust, flavoursome food, Valentine believes that a real understanding of excellent ingredients, producers and the natural history of food contributes as much to the plate as the cooking. A very keen outdoors man, Valentine can often be found seeking new adventures outside the kitchen and, most likely, fishing.
Valentine’s first hit series What to Eat Now (BBC Two) on the best food that Autumn has to offer was closely followed by a second series focusing on Summer. He presented Valentine Warner: Coast to Coast(Good Food), in which he travelled the country fishing and cooking his catch, as well as Ration Book Britain (Yesterday) and Valentine Warner Eats The Sixties (Yesterday).
Valentine has been a chef for Great British Food Revival (BBC Two),Love Your Garden with Alan Titchmarch (ITV 1), Country Show Cook Off (BBC Two), Perfect… (Good Food) and My Kitchen (Good Food). Recently Valentine presented Valentine Warner Eats Scandinavia (Good Food) and two series called Hook It Cook It and Valentine Warner’s Wild Table: Canada (Fox).
Valentine has written two best-selling books accompanying What to Eat Now. These were followed by The Good Table: Adventures In and Around My Kitchen and his most recent book What to Eat Next, published in 2014. Valentine has written for the Times, Independent, Countryfile magazine, Great British Food magazine, Delicious, Waitrose Food Illustrated and Olive magazine, to name a few.
Valentine is one of the Founders of the Moorland Spirit Company who make Hepple Gin in the wilds of Northumberland on remote moorland where its hard to find wifi or a wife for that matter. He would generally prefer to be found in a field rather than an office and is most likely to be holding a spoon, a fishing rod or a mossy stick.
Warner attended Bedales School in Hampshire from 1985 to 1990 and in 1994 studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art. Warner's father was diplomat Sir Frederick Warner who was British Ambassador to Japan from 1972 until 1975.