Hot off the opening of his new restaurant Vesper in Clerkenwell, we caught up with Jackson Boxer as he set up for another busy night of service. As Jackson’s 6th opening, London’s chef of the moment argues that there isn’t a perfect formula for opening a new restaurant, and if there were, he wouldn’t be interested in it.

What does Vesper mean to you - how would you describe the restaurant and menu to someone who has never been before?

I built Vesper to be a creative outlet for certain ideas I had about food that perhaps didn't feel like they had a home in any of my other restaurants - an idea about London, an idea of how London is actually possibly one of the best places to be cooking in the world right now, and how I feel we're on the cusp of a really exciting creative resurgence, not necessarily or specifically in food, but in culture in general, and how I wanted a new restaurant, which felt like it was specifically for London right now, to reflect that.

Do you feel there’s a formula to opening restaurants or does each new location require specific attention and details?

I'm sure it's possible to make a formula for restaurants, but that's not how my head works, or at the very least, if something was simple enough to be distilled into a formula, I would consider it solved and address myself to something more stimulating. Each space presents a totally new possibility, and it's that sense of limitless potential which I find so exciting.

How do you manage your time between restaurants, are you constantly on the move?

Depends. When a restaurant is new, I spend almost every hour there, as I feel very in love with it, and very protective, like a newborn creature, but also because it hasn't yet figured out what it is, or found itself, and that process of becoming is incredibly exciting and rewarding. However, once it has a clear and confident sense of itself, and develops an institutional understanding of itself, it needs me less, and I can therefore spend less time there, and more time elsewhere.

What attracted you to working in kitchens in the first place?

I like cooking, and I like cooks. They're good people, and they work hard, and I think there's a nobility and an honesty in that. I also like food, and I like feeding people.

I think the idea of working hard, cooking beautiful food to feed to people and make them happy is a fundamentally decent way to pay the rent.