CHEF DAY RADLEY
Founder and Director of The Vegan Chef School
Hi, I’m Vegan Chef, Day Radley, founder of The Vegan Chef School. I created the school to help forward the vegan movement.
I became vegan for animal ethics. In 1995, at age 17, I went to a protest against the live export of veal calves. A protester gave me a flyer that detailed the life of a dairy cow and her calf. I didn’t realise, until that time, that cows had to be impregnated to produce milk. It had never occurred to me!
Once I learnt the suffering and pain caused by the dairy industry I knew I had to be vegan. It was the only way for my actions to be aligned with my beliefs.
Eating vegan, at that time, was tough. Restaurants and cafes didn’t have vegan options and I didn’t know how to cook! And so I turned to ready made foods, sausages, burgers and such things. But I quickly got tired of these foods. I had sampled excellent vegan curries at my friends house. Little pots of leftover curry from the night before and light-as-air chapatis. I found a recipe book on Indian food and started there.
I made mistakes, far too many to count. But I kept going.
From that starting point I explored recipes from around the world. Firstly, with recipes that were already vegan but later, moving onto non vegan recipes I would veganise. Cue more mistakes!!! Veganising food is difficult when you are beginning and, at that time, there were no blogs, no online information to help me. I relied on what few vegan cookbooks I could find in bookshops and from local animal rights groups.
Playing with food, being willing to experiment and be creative, was key to me becoming a better cook and, ultimately, a professional chef.
I adored being in the kitchen, I could be in there for hours, time stood still and sped by at the same time. Now I know this is called ‘flow’ and if you experience it you have found something you need to make into your career. In 2010 I had a photography exhibition at a cafe. The owner asked me to make cakes and pastries for his cafe and I happily obliged. I baked all day, at home and I was in heaven!
I decided to make vegan cooking my career. But this was in 2010, prior to the meteoric rise of veganism in the UK.
When friends heard about my new career they asked who I would cook for, because there were hardly any vegans. But that didn’t matter to me. I had finally found a career with a purpose I believed in, doing something I thoroughly enjoyed.
I was aware that my new career choice wouldn’t be easy so I got involved in food in any way that I could. I photographed food, I wrote for a food magazine, I continually developed recipes.
After several months I applied for a job as a pastry chef at a local vegetarian restaurant. When I went for the interview I took two cakes with me, all my food photography and articles from the food magazine. The head chef could not deny my enthusiasm and gave me a shot. My trial was to make one dessert and one cake between 9am and 11am in their kitchen. I had never been in a professional kitchen before. The experience was terrifying and incredibly challenging. Cooking in a kitchen where you don’t know where anything is is so hard. But, I was determined to make this a success and at the end of the morning I was offered the job.
I was aware that my new career choice wouldn’t be easy so I got involved in food in any way that I could. I photographed food, I wrote for a food magazine, I continually developed recipes.
I adored being a new professional chef. I was paid minimum wage, the work was sweaty and exhausting, my body ached all the time but I loved it! Over the next year I worked my way up to head chef and then moved abroad to work in Asia and Africa. I launched a vegan restaurant in Kuala Lumpur and worked on a monkey foundation in South Africa.
In 2013 I moved into private chef work. I worked for families, in their homes, creating food for them. For the next 5 years this was my profession. It was throughout this time I truly developed my food style. It was a period of great creativity for me, a time where I could experiment with clients giving me feedback. I also worked with food companies during this time, developing product ideas. I have worked with Birds Eye, PepsiCo and an array of start up companies.
I have been teaching for several years now. Initially, home cooks and then, with the creation of The Vegan Chef School, aspiring chefs.
I know how amazing vegan food can be, how the possibilities are endless, how we are only at the start of developing this ground-breaking world-changing cuisine.
But I also know how daunting it can feel to want to be able to cook great food or want to become a vegan chef. It is overwhelming and confusing. And that is why I aim to teach as many people as possible, passing on all of the knowledge and skills I have developed over the last decade.
You can find out more about the mission of the school here.
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