At Home with Marcus Patrick Brown

Crispy olive oil roast potatoes with homemade tzatziki

At Home With is an original series from Honest Toil exploring the people using our olive oil in their own homes. Through conversations, recipes and personal stories, the series offers a glimpse into the spaces, traditions and rituals that shape the way we cook at home – celebrating thoughtful ingredients, shared tables and the role our olive oil plays in everyday kitchens.

Creative Director at Service Works and founder of Picnic Magazine, Marcus Patrick Brown has spent years documenting food culture from behind the camera. His work has taken him into kitchens across the world, from Michelin-starred restaurants to roadside vendors, offering a unique perspective on the people and places that shape how we eat.

Despite spending so much of his working life around restaurants, the food Marcus cooks at home couldn't be more different. It's simple, generous and rooted in comfort. Think roast chicken with potatoes and tzatziki, vodka pasta with chicken schnitzel, or a pan of shakshuka shared around the table.

Many of those dishes trace back to childhood. Growing up, his mum regularly cooked kedgeree, kippers with bread and butter, and breast of lamb with mint sauce. They're the kinds of meals that still influence the way he cooks today: unfussy food made to be enjoyed together.

Having stepped into thousands of professional kitchens throughout his career, Marcus has learnt that what separates a great kitchen isn't necessarily the food, but the atmosphere.

"I've stepped foot in thousands of kitchens at this point. Mangal restaurants in Istanbul, Pakistani grill houses in Whitechapel, izakayas in Tokyo, Cantonese restaurants in Chinatown, roadside vendors, Michelin-star kitchens. Almost all kitchens are fundamentally the same in terms of design: stainless steel, white tiles, epoxy flooring. What's most palpable is the energy of the head chef and crew that run them. The best kitchens aren't loud, they're calm. No shouting or aggression, everyone somehow in the right place at the right time."

For us, Marcus prepared one of his favourite things to share with friends: crispy roast potatoes served with homemade tzatziki. "I love to cook a roast on a Monday night with a couple of friends over," he says. "Everything goes on one tray, and it's a great way of getting everyone together."

It's exactly the kind of cooking we love. Seasonal ingredients, generous pours of olive oil and simple food that's made to be shared.