Our Kitchen

Our BrainFood kitchen is special. It is at the heart of what we do. Without it, we wouldn't be able to make over half of our food, in fact, probably more. Every morning, we get a delivery of ingredients, from apples to wild crayfish, and begin chopping and slicing early. This means more work but we think it's worth it.
 
Our chef makes our sandwiches, salads, baguettes and wraps by hand throughout the day. To keep our food free of nasties, our chef washes her hands regularly – before she starts, once she has finished, if she leaves the kitchen, when she enters the kitchen, not to mention all of the times throughout the day when the Kitchen Leader calls for everyone to complete a hand wash. They wear disposable aprons and hairnets. They may not be the height of fashion but they're crucial for keeping our kitchens and food clean and safe, which is something we are meticulous about. We clean top to bottom at the start and end of each day and use two sinks to wash our knives, spatulas and boards then let them air-dry rather than using tea towels which can be breeding grounds for nasty things with long, unpronounceable names.

Making our food by hand means we can ensure each ingredient is as it should be. We carefully check our fruit and vegetables to make sure they don't have any bruising or blemishes. Avocados have to be ripe so we give them a little squeeze. Too hard or too soft and they're just not good. Our salad leaves are gently washed to ensure that they are clean, crisp and bouncy. We keep delicate ingredients like rare roast beef, Scottish salmon, Champagne capers and many more in our big fridge. Our ingredients page has information about all of our core ingredients including where they come from. We're proud that none of our ingredients are transported to us by air.

It's important that every bite of our food is full of flavour so we use the 3 'S's - scoops, scales and slices – to make sure we use the right amount of every ingredient. And we always go all the way to the edges of our sandwiches – we don't like 'bare' crusts. Every product we make has its own recipe card which we follow to the letter. It's better to use a card as it means we can easily update them if we improve a recipe, plus they take up much less space than a cook book. Our Kitchen Leader spots checks on sandwiches, taking them apart and weighing the ingredients to make sure they are correct. Every product is given one final check before it leaves the kitchen to ensure it looks as good as it will taste. When it comes to the quality of our food, we are perfectionists (and just a little bit obsessive, but that's a good thing).