Harriet Mansell | Wild Food Chef, Speaker & Author

There is a whole world under your feet.

I am a chef, author and wild food specialist who is focussed on flavour, foraging, seasonal cooking, preservation and plant chemistry for kitchens of every kind.

Over the past two decades I’ve trained in some of the best kitchens in the world, including Michelin-starred restaurants, then founded and led award-winning restaurants of my own, both recognised in the Michelin Guide. Wild and seasonal food have been at the heart of it all.

Wild food is flavour, certainly, but it is also independence, memory, medicine and defiance. It is knowledge hiding in plain sight. Once somebody shows you how to see it, the entire landscape shifts.

As a chef, I went looking for flavour and found myself wandering into plant medicine. The more I learned about why a plant tastes the way it does, the more I understood what it is doing in the body. That was when I understood the intersection of flavour and medicine and this forms a large part of my training given to others.

Over the years I spent exploring wild foods for my menus in my restaurants, I had gone looking for a place to find the education that I needed and along this journey I realised how much was missing from professional kitchens. Wild food simply hasn’t been part of a chef’s education. Beyond safe identification, there are allergens, active compounds and medicinal properties to understand, and safe handling to preserve and serve wild food consistently all year round. To serve wild food, you need to know what you are serving, and this is in fact a vast and very exciting subject. This is my area of specialism: inspiring people to use plants safely, confidently and respectfully.

The wild is not an infinite supermarket. It is a nuanced and complex area, and I educate people about ethical and sustainable foraging, the laws around this, and considerations you should be taking, indeed mostly what you should not be taking. I’m a member of the Association of Foragers, who advocate for responsible foraging and a responsibility to educate.

My book that I am writing, The Wild Between Us, is the wild food reference for professional kitchens - flavour, plant chemistry, medicine and preservation - and for anyone who cooks or wants to safely explore the wild.

Education is paramount. We are inclined to protect what we know and value. If we can notice what is there, learn how it tastes and what it can do, then we have a reason to care for it. I teach this in kitchens, in schools, on stage and on the land, and through my podcast and films, If A Tree Falls, which explore our connection with the natural world. I created an online wild food training for chefs with mymuybueno, and I run workshops that teach people to pick safely and then create food, remedies and topical applications, including skincare, from these wonderful, highly charged botanicals.

Today I work with restaurants, hotels, estates and producers, as well as businesses through corporate training, to train teams in wild food, inspire menus and develop food concepts, guest experiences and educational projects. Having built successful hospitality businesses myself, I know what is financially and practically viable.

The thread running through it all has remained the same: a curiosity about how we live, what we value and the role food plays in connecting us.

Wild Food Course for Chefs

I created an online wild food course with the mymuybueno Academy of Culinary Arts, teaching chefs how to identify, pick, prepare and preserve wild plants safely, and use them with confidence on the menu. To go to course, click here.

Experience

Founder and Managing Director, Robin Wylde and Lilac, Lyme Regis - two restaurants recognised in the Michelin Guide and listed in the UK’s Top 100.
Private and yacht chef, including for the Qatari Royal Family and the Murdoch family
Trained in some of the best kitchens in the world, inlcuding Noma and multiple other Michelin-starred restaurants

Awards and Recognition

Chef of the Year, Food Magazine Reader Awards
Best Restaurant Outside London, Food and Travel Reader Awards
Innovation Award, Trencherman’s Awards
Shortlisted: Female Chef of the Year (AYALA SquareMeal) and Chef to Watch (National Restaurant Awards)
Winner, Antigua International Yacht Chef Competition, cooking with local wild foods

Speaking and Media

Food On The Edge, Malta, 2026 - 'Hidden in Plain Sight'
Great British Menu (BBC Two),
Guest judge on Top Chef USA
Susan Calman’s Grand Day Out
River Cottage Reunited
Channel 4 Chef versus Cornershop
Featured in the BBC, Channel 4, Financial Times, National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveller and Great British Chefs