Wild Garlic, Gooseberries & Me

There are certain moments in a life that quietly but decisively change the direction you are heading in. Often, you only realise their significance many years later. For me, one of those moments came over 15 years ago, when I picked up a book called Wild Garlic, Gooseberries, and Me by Dennis Cotter.

At the time, I was working in kitchens where my beliefs in locally grown food, cooking from scratch, and proper nutrition were not particularly welcomed. Those values were often questioned, sometimes openly mocked, and I regularly felt out of step with the environments I was working in. I believed deeply in that way of cooking, but I was also starting to wonder whether there was really a place for it in the industry I had chosen.

Then I read this book.

Wild Garlic, Gooseberries, and Me tells the story of a chef and his relationship with vegetable growers Lucy and Ultan in County Cork. It is not just a book about food, but about trust, patience, seasonality, and the quiet power of collaboration between grower and cook. It showed me that there were restaurants in the world built on exactly the principles I cared about, and that those places could thrive, inspire, and matter.

Reading it gave me something I had been missing for a while: faith.

I wrote to Dennis after finishing the book and asked if I could come and do a stage at his restaurant. A stage is a chance to work for free, to learn, and to see whether you might fit into a kitchen and its philosophy. I travelled to Ireland for a week, carrying tools, nerves, and a quiet hope that it might lead somewhere.

At the end of that week, I was offered a job at Café Paradiso.

I moved to Ireland with very little plan beyond working there. I lived with complete strangers, left a romantic partner behind, and found myself navigating a new country, a new kitchen, and a new way of being. It was challenging, emotional, and at times unsettling, but it was also deeply formative. I learned not only about food, but about commitment, resilience, and trusting the long game.

That experience shaped me more than I probably realised at the time.

Fast forward to now, and it is that very book which has quietly woven its way back into my life. It is the book that brought Jack and me together to create these pop-ups. We both share a deep passion for the kind of cooking Dennis advocates: thoughtful, vegetable-led, seasonal, and rooted in relationships with growers.

When The Warren was empty, Jack had just finished a job in Venice, and the timing aligned, it felt instinctive to bring our energies together. What has unfolded over these weeks has genuinely felt magical. There has been a new energy in the space, a sense of play, focus, and possibility that has been incredibly nourishing for me.

As we enter the final week of these pop-ups, I am feeling an enormous sense of gratitude. Gratitude for meeting Jack, for being able to share his talent with you, and for feeling The Warren come alive again in a new and unexpected way. It has sparked ideas and questions about how this space might be reimagined in the future, once this chapter comes to a close.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us, supported us, and shared these evenings with us. This final week is nearly full, and my focus now is simply on making these last four pop-ups as enchanting, generous, and memorable as they can possibly be.

I will be in touch soon about what comes next.

For now, thank you for reading, and for being part of this moment.

Deri