Not a restaurant. Not a cookery school. A different way of thinking about food — and what happens when people gather around it.
"You don't need a recipe for every occasion. You need curiosity, a well-kept larder, and the confidence that what's in your fridge right now is enough to make something worth eating."
The Fridgealchemy philosophy
Fridgealchemy didn't start as a business idea. It started as a question — what's in the fridge? — asked on a Saturday afternoon when dinner hadn't been planned and the week's leftovers were looking interesting. A bit of this from Tuesday, something from last night, half a thing that hadn't made it to the dog yet.
My son Jack, who grew up eating this way, told me recently that he never thought about food any other way — that everything on a plate was always just different ingredients to him, not a finished thing to be received. That's what twenty years of a family kitchen does. And it's what Fridgealchemy is trying to share.
No Michelin ambitions. No formal training. Twenty-one years running a consultancy, a lifetime fell running and foraging in the Welsh Borders, and the conviction that the landscape around us holds everything we need to eat well.
Fridgealchemy is not a showcase. The food is never the point on its own — it's the thing that makes the conversation happen, that gets people into a kitchen together, that connects what's on the plate to the landscape outside the window.
Some evenings guests are invited to send a photo of their fridge and larder before they arrive. The meal is partly built around what they already have at home. That's not a gimmick — it's the whole idea. Food as autobiography. The kitchen as a space for participation, not performance.
The community comes first. Everything else follows from that.
Fridgealchemy moves across four pillars. Foraging and movement are free, weekly, and for anyone. Kitchen and Retreats are where the venture sustains itself — and where the ideas come to life most fully.
Kitchen
Supper evenings and hands-on workshops from a Monmouthshire kitchen. Guests cook alongside, not in front of. The meal comes from what's available — local, seasonal, honest. Gluten-free throughout.
Before each evening, guests are invited to send three pictures — their fridge, their larder, their view outside. These arrive at the table as a small printed booklet, with questions, space for notes, and the evening's recipes. Something to keep.
Ticketed · MonmouthshireRetreats
Seasonal mountain retreats for small groups, in Wales to begin with and possibly further afield. Real landscapes, food that comes from where you are. Forage, move, cook, eat, rest — in that order. Register your interest below.
Interest list open · MountainsForaging
Free weekly walks in the Wye Valley and Black Mountains. Find it, identify it, understand what it's for. No booking, no charge — just show up.
Free · Weekly · No bookingMovement
Trail runs, fell walks and canicross sessions in the Monmouthshire hills. Movement that earns the meal — and changes how you think about what you eat. All paces welcome.
Free · Weekly · All welcomeA retreat is Fridgealchemy stretched over several days. Forage in the morning, move through the hills, cook what you find, eat together, rest. We're shaping them for small groups, and the place matters less than the landscape and the people around the table. Nothing is booked yet, and there are no dates or prices. We'd like to hear who's interested first.
Black Mountains and Wye Valley
Close to home, on hills we already run and forage every week. Farm kitchens and local producers on the doorstep.
The Maiella mountains
Wild, mountainous and food-obsessed, with a small retreat run by friends of ours. Early days, and nothing is fixed.
A farmhouse, a hut, a lodge
If you know a mountain place that would suit a small group and a shared kitchen, tell us about it.
Register your interest and tell us where and when appeals. There's no obligation. We'll write to you when we have something real to offer.
Register your interestEvery week there's something free happening in the hills or hedgerows around Monmouthshire. A forage, a trail run, a wander with purpose. These aren't loss leaders or marketing activities — they're the point.
The community that gathers around the free activities is what Fridgealchemy is made of. Supper evenings and retreats sustain the whole thing financially. That relationship keeps everything honest.
Turn up once. See how it feels. There's no obligation attached.
Monmouthshire hedgerows and woodland, guided by season. What we find shapes what gets cooked.
Free · Open to all · WeeklyRegular routes through the Black Mountains and Wye Valley. All paces, all welcome.
Free · Open to all · WeeklySmall, intimate evenings in Monmouthshire. Before each one, guests send three pictures — fridge, larder, outside. Those images arrive at the table as a printed booklet: questions to prompt conversation, space for notes, and the evening's recipes to take home. The meal is partly built from what guests already have.
Ticketed · Gluten-free throughoutHalf-days built around one ingredient, one technique, or one idea. Hands-on — there's no watching from the side.
Ticketed · Gluten-free throughoutFridgealchemy starts with a simple question — what's in the fridge? — but it doesn't stop at the fridge door. Look out of the kitchen window: a garden, a hedgerow, a neighbour, a farm down the lane. The fridge is really your way into the food that's close to you, and what you do with it starts a conversation.
At a Fridgealchemy table we cook from what's here, and we talk — about where food comes from, who grows it, what it means in our families, what we'd want to pass on. Everyone has an opinion and nobody needs to be an expert. Over a shared meal, people say things they wouldn't say in a meeting.
It isn't a purist philosophy. If you need to buy something from the supermarket, that's fine. It's a direction of travel, not a rulebook. Whatever the setting, there is one communal table, for up to 25 people, with no stage and no audience. There's always enough to start a conversation.
What's in your fridge, your larder, and outside your window?
Who grows or makes the food you eat — and do you know their name?
What does food mean in your family, and what would you want to keep?
Up to 25 people, one table
A shared meal built from the fridge, the larder and the view outside the window, with conversation woven through it. In a kitchen, a barn or a pub.
Half a day, hands-on
Cooking together around one ingredient, one technique or one idea, and using it to talk about where food comes from and who we want to be around it.
For groups and organisations
I design and lead food-led conversations for communities, schools, festivals and teams, shaped around your people and your place.
If you'd like to bring a Fridgealchemy conversation to your community, school or team, I'd be glad to talk it through. There's no obligation.
Talk about a workshopThe question — what's in the fridge? — works anywhere. In a kitchen in Monmouthshire, on a hillside somewhere, or at a table in your own home, wherever that is. If the idea resonates with how you already think about food and community, we'd like to help you build it where you are.
Fridgealchemy events happen in real kitchens — domestic, unhurried, a little imperfect. Everything about how you run yours, including any commercial arrangements, is yours entirely.
We'll share what we've learned — event formats, hosting guides, the fridge-and-larder invitation, and the booklet template. That booklet — guests' three pictures, prompt questions, notes space, and the evening's recipes — is one of the most distinctive things Fridgealchemy does. It travels with the idea.
Connect with others running Fridgealchemy evenings in different places. Over time, the booklets from different kitchens become a distributed record of how the idea lives in different hands, different landscapes, different larders. That's the network.