When I first met Jackson Boxer, I was expecting a rock and roll gastronomic character, a sort of looming, wild and booming figure. I imagined him to be a man openly talking of the sobriety he found while still cooking, and of how he manages to juggle the lofty heights of Brunswick House, Orasay, Cowley Manor, Henri and his Selfridges café, all at once. And yet, I was met with a highly articulate, gentle soul who may be a heavyweight on the British food scene but who is nothing if not mild-mannered and utterly lovely in real life.
Jackson is, in his own words, “staunchly a Londoner, born and bred” but he has spent an enormous amount of time in Paris. As a young chef learning his way, he took endless day trips over on the Eurostar, “back when you could get return tickets for about 15 euros. I’d get the 6am train, be there in time for a 9am pastry. I’d then grab an early lunch, spend the afternoon in a wine bar, have an early dinner and be on the 9pm train home again. I always say that London is where I learnt to cook but Paris is where I learnt to eat.”
The Parisian dining scene has had a profound influence on his style of cooking and the unrivalled attention to detail for which is well known. And so, when Experimental Group (with whom he embarked upon a restaurant at Oxfordshire’s Cowley Manor) asked him to get into the kitchen of Henri at the Henrietta Hotel in Covent Garden, it seemed the perfect collaboration. “I knew the hotel from when Ollie Dabbous was there, before he opened Hide. Henri was a natural progression but also quite a thrilling evolution from Cowley Manor. It was nice to pay an homage to the Experimental Group and their Parisian roots, where they had opened their first cocktail bar 15 years ago, and particularly as someone who remembers their London bar when it opened a decade or so ago. It was impossibly fun and chic and elegant, but also felt very contemporary, which is kind of how I think of Paris. It’s a city that manages to synthesise a coherent understanding of its past without losing its appetite for creativity.”
Jackson describes Paris as “probably my very favourite city in the world in which to eat” and, though he never formally trained there, its influence on him continues to run deep. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris. Back when I was visiting monthly, there was an incredible coterie of chefs moving to Paris because it was cheap, and they wanted to make the most of the incredible produce there. As a city, it has a very clear-sighted refusal to allow its large commercial spaces to be rebuilt in the way London has, where many spaces have been quickly demolished and re-fabricated. Paris manages to stay concurrent with its history while also presenting real innovation and creativity. I do think London would be better if we fostered the same spirit of enterprise as Paris, which retains small characterful spaces that allow small business to operate. I’m a champion of London and I would never leave but I do think that’s one thing Paris does very, very well.” And, of course, when we discuss the time he spent in Paris most recently in his research for Henri, it comes as no surprise that it didn’t take much to convince him to get over there. “When The Experimental Group offered me the opportunity to get behind Henri, it seemed like an amazing way to reacquaint myself with probably my favourite city in the world to go out and eat in. It was really wonderful to go and rediscover the energy of Paris.”