I got involved in a charity night for the Fifteen Foundation at London's Great Ormond Street hospital and I played a gig for them for free - Jamie Oliver asked if there was anything he could do for me, and I said I'd love to eat at your restaurant. So when my mum and dad came to see my show, they came for lunch here with me and my girlfriend. We didn't order, they just brought us loads and loads of stuff for about three-and-a-half hours. It was definitely the best meal all of us had ever had - I didn't understand what most of it was - it started out with little things on Chinese spoons, something with chestnut, and then there was beetroot soup in a tiny cup, and then there was pasta, and it looked like ravioli but it tasted like pumpkin. And every single thing had a different wine with it. I was absolutely plastered by the end of it and so were my parents. It was brilliant. The waiter was really cool too - didn't take the piss out of me when I kept saying, 'What's this then?'

I've always been interested in food - my mum's from Burma and my dad's family are Jewish so there's always been a lot of cooking going on. Burmese food is quite curry-based, but more soupy or stewy than you'd imagine. There's one dish I remember her doing really well - it's quite a peasanty curry, with carrots and potatoes and stuff. They make a lot of lime pickles too - usually some member of my family makes about three billion jars of pickle, and then we get them for about the next 10 years at Christmas. Then my dad's side is half-Jewish with a bit of Egyptian in too. I wasn't brought up Jewish, but whenever we went to my gran's house we would have chicken soup and matzo balls. I cook a mean chicken soup, in fact I did it after the roast I cooked last night - I am, as yet, unmarried, and I think I'd make a good house-husband. I know what I'm doing in a kitchen, but I've been doing it for ages: my mum was like, you guys have to cook as well. I've got a feel for it all now.

Food has a different role in my life now that I tour and play live. I can't eat too much before a show - I do, regularly, and I shouldn't. I'm quite physical when I'm on stage and as you sing from your stomach you put quite a lot of strain on it, which doesn't work so well if it's full of food. So I have a lot of long lunches - usually we arrive at the venue in the morning and then go for a lunch with wine. Then I have a little sleep in the afternoon.

I cook for me, my brother and my girlfriend. I've never done it for loads of people, I wouldn't know where to start. My kitchen's tiny anyway. I do a lot of writing and recording at home and my brother lives next door with his studio, so what tends to happen is that my day consists of making music and cooking. I bought a little upright piano for the kitchen off eBay for £150, so I can spend a lot of time on that, plus my record collection and an old four-track tape recorder are in there too, so it's no wonder I don't have room for entertaining. A large part of the new album was written in the kitchen. I've only been back from touring two days and I've already done a roast and a casserole and a load of sausages. I went to a farmers' market yesterday: in supermarkets people ignore what's seasonal and get stuff from abroad. At the market there was all this wintry stuff and I came back with a bag full of root vegetables.

So now I've got to work out what the hell you do with a turnip.

Fifteen

15 Westland Place, London. N1 (0871 330 1515)

History

Jamie Oliver set up Fifteen in 2002 with the aim of establishing a charity that rescued troubled teens by teaching them to cook. The restaurant serves traditional Italian classics and simple, straightforward seasonal cooking.

Popular dishes

Wicked Sicilian fish stew with red mullet, John Dory, langoustines, razor clams, mussels, saffron aioli, £21.50; Leg of pork from Pete Gott's farm (slow cooked in dandelion, balsamic and bay) with spinach and salsa verde £20.

Famous customers

The Blairs, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Zoe Ball, Sarah Cox

Open

Monday to Saturday serving breakfast 9am - 11am; lunch 12pm - 3pm; dinner 6pm - 10pm. Sunday 11am - 5pm