About Us

Imogen and Ivan are proud to have championed British heritage cooking with Native since 2016. 

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The next chapter in the Native journey sees us head to the beautiful Worcestershire countryside, enabling us to forage and grow our own in the kitchen garden. Here Native will engage profoundly in how local landscape can dictate wonderfully seasonal menus and push our boundaries of creativity. 

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London-born Ivan met Imogen, originally from Northamptonshire, at university in Brighton, and they started their collaboration with markets, street food and pop-ups more than a decade ago. They are dedicated to achieving

zero waste kitchen practices and to cooking only sustainable, ultra-seasonable produce.

 

Their Native restaurant journey has taken them to establishments in Neal’s Yard, Borough Market, Osea Island, and most recently (until December 2023) at Brown’s in Mayfair. Ivan appeared on Great British Menu (series 15) in 2020, representing London and the South East.

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A born hunter-gatherer, Imogen grew up on a rural farm and became fascinated with nature and foraging wild food, plucking and skinning, as well as overseeing her family’s falconry business and managing the infamous Rufus the hawk. She drives the Native business with her incredible palate for wild British food and her determined sustainability actions and goals.

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Mostly self-trained, Ivan worked at River Cottage HQ in Devon as a Commis Chef (2014) and did a chef stage at Blue Hill Farm at Stone Barns in New York (2017). Native was initially launched in 2016 in Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden – and created a bit of a reputation for foraging and wild cooking (including, at times, incorporating items such as squirrel, ants and hogweed in the menus which went viral).

 

The restaurant moved to Borough Market on Southwark Street in 2018 until Covid lockdown, and then shifted to Osea Island in Essex in September 2020 for three months, operating until the second lockdown.