Chloe Lucas-Walsh cooks outside the box

Our conversation on recipe development, how her autoimmune disease influences her cooking, and what she hopes to do next.

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Chloe Walsh is a Los Angeles-based chef who is known for simple and delicious recipes with a keen eye for stylish plating. She worked in restaurants growing up and gained a following in the the early pandemic. Since then, she’s done pop-ups around L.A., recipe development, food styling, content creation, and now she’s thinking about her next move. I spoke with Chloe about recipe development, how her autoimmune disease influences her cooking, and what she hopes to do next.

Brianna Plaza: Can you start by telling me about yourself?

Chloe Lucas-Walsh: I am originally from the UK and I moved to the US ten years ago. I lived in San Francisco for three years and now I’ve been in Los Angeles for seven, but I spent a large part of my adult life in London. I have been cooking for as long as I can remember. I worked in restaurants while I was putting myself through college and I started hosting supper clubs when I was at university.

My family has always been a very food-centric family. Our house was always filled with people and my parents taught me about the social aspects of hosting. I cook, but I adore hosting and supper clubs, and I think that came from my parents, where my love of cooking came from my grandma, June.

I graduated with a fine art degree, but I couldn’t see a strong career in that, and so I moved more into interiors. With my art background and my creative eye, I was doing lots of brand strategy for smaller brands and working with small startups in the interior home world. To I say I was a jack of all trades is an understatement.

At the same time, my rheumatoid arthritis had gotten quite bad, so that pulled me away from kitchens — I felt like I couldn’t do those jobs anymore. And also I have to deal with the emotional aspect of knowing I’m going to deal with this for the rest of my life.

San Francisco is such a food city, I moved here and I was thrust into a whole new world. I didn’t think I would fall in love with Northern California as much as I did, but it’s such a different food scene to London. I’d never really experienced eating in that way before. I started to document my eating and cooking a little bit at the time, but it was just for myself.

Then my husband’s job brought us to LA. Coming from London, San Francisco felt small, and we wanted a bigger city. He was offered a position in LA and we didn’t even blink twice. We came down and fell in love from the beginning. I love the food scene in LA — there’s just so much more in terms of fine dining, mom and pop, and pop-ups. You can be in any neighborhood and find both ends of the spectrum in terms of dining.

We bought a house in December 2019 and closed three weeks before the pandemic shut everything down. We were beyond happy but also so scared that we’d lose our jobs and not be able to actually afford to stay there. It was a weird time for everyone, but we didn’t anticipate being in a pandemic and living so far away from our families. And because I’m on an immunosuppressant for my arthritis, I can get sick really easily. The pandemic scared the hell out of me and I didn’t go outside for 10 weeks.

I really leaned into cooking and documenting it. We enjoyed our life in this little bubble as much as we possibly could, and that’s when my following started to grow. I’ve always cooked the way I cook, but I’ve never shared it to the extent that I’m sharing it now. It was really fun and interesting to see people responding well to my simple food.

It was really amazing and a lot of opportunities came from that. But through all of this, my knee was extremely bad, so eventually, I had a total knee replacement. It was the scariest and best thing I’ve ever done, and it changed my life. After six weeks, I was able to take on more in-person projects. I eventually left my full-time role and went freelance. I’ve done pop-ups and supper clubs, a lot of food styling and recipe development, and worked on cookbooks. Anything under the umbrella of food.

I’m really exercising my creativity — if I think I can do it, I will always say yes.

braised baby bok choi with rice noodles & a miso chicken broth | tomato salad with burrata, lightly pickled red onion & pistachios

Brianna Plaza: How does your work in art and interiors influence your cooking?

Chloe Lucas-Walsh: It completely influences it, that's the answer. I think about the food as much as the way that I plate, which is why people come to me for my styling as well as my cooking. 

It's all influenced by who I am and and also my artistic license and point of view, which all ties back to fine art. It ties back to interiors and having an aesthetic eye for things, right down to the simplicity of my food. It still has to look beautiful, even if there's only three items on the place — it has to be art on a plate. A lot of the things I photograph aren't just highly stylized pictures, they are photos of what I actually ate, which I think people really resonate well with. They know there's going to be highly stylized food, but also my Instagram is also how I cook, how I eat, and how I think about food.

Brianna Plaza: Like many of us, you shop seasonally, but there’s such an abundance of produce in California. How do you think about ingredients and recipes, but still maintain a measure of editing?

Chloe Lucas-Walsh: California is abundant all year round, but I will say you can't really get good tomatoes in March, for example. I am really influenced by the seasons, but also influenced by what I feel like eating at that time of year. The way I think about food is almost a bit selfish. What do I feel like eating? What do I want to cook right now? Hopefully people enjoy that.

Even with the abundance in LA, seeing something like the first asparagus of the season makes me go wild with ideas. Then as the year progresses, I continue to look forward to everything that comes. But I keep it simple. So yes, there’s abundance in LA, but usually there’s one specific seasonal item in my dishes. There will always likely be some beans, or some potatoes, and usually a bit of protein. I eat very vegetable and seafood-forward.

Basically, it’s whatever I’m influenced by at the market, which I know is probably a common story. We’re so lucky here in the US to have access to the farmers’ markets. In London, there are farmers’ markets, but they’re very specialized and extremely specific. You would not go to the farmers’ market to get your weekly produce. Whereas here in the US, it does cost money to buy beautiful produce, but I still feel like people can go and get a few things if they have the budget. Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing markets in London, but it’s a different shopping experience in L.A.

Brianna Plaza: You've spoken more openly about your autoimmune disease. How do you think about recipe development when it comes to balancing what you need to stay healthy versus the mindset that you're creating for others?

Chloe Lucas-Walsh: I love food as a number one. As a rule, I believe everything in moderation, so my passion for bread and potatoes and everything that’s delicious never wanes. So even with an autoimmune disease and food restrictions, my passion does not wane when it comes to recipe development. 

I’m currently cutting out gluten and dairy to help manage my bad flares of rheumatoid arthritis. They’re all encompassing — terrible fatigue, doom and gloom — it’s pretty devastating for someone that has a pretty positive outlook. But cutting out those foods has really helped. But I, of course, me being me, sneak in a little sourdough here and there, and then it all comes tumbling down. It's fine for a while until the flare comes. I hate admitting how much cutting out certain foods helps me.

I’ve also recently developed an allergy to coconut and even though I’ve become one of those people with a number of food allergies, nothing would ever change in terms of how I think about food and developing recipes. The one thing it does force me to do is think outside the box and get creative with how I cook for myself. Luckily, I have an amazing husband and friends who want to eat my food and test it. 

roasted potatoes with a horseradish labneh dip | scallop crudo with horseradish, lots of black pepper and lemon

Brianna Plaza: You have a popular Instagram, a Substack, and you do a lot of popups — you're almost at a crossroads for a few different paths. How do you think about your next move? 

Chloe Lucas-Walsh: It's almost like you read my mind. I can't say too much, but I can say I've just signed with a literary agent. I’m working on something quite exciting. It will be recipes, but there will also be some essays as well.

I read so much food writing and I have a lot to say, and I realized I wanted to share more about growing up in Europe. I was always too scared to start a Substack because I have undiagnosed dyslexia and my grammar could be better. My friend read some of my unpublished writing and she was like, “People want to see this stuff.” I bit the bullet six months ago and I’ve had a really good response to it. 

I’ve also thought about opening a restaurant, but it’s the commitment. I’ve worked in bars and restaurants, and it’s an all-encompassing project. But since we’re not having kids, I feel like I would love to have a life purpose in that regard. I’d love to open a multidisciplinary space. A place where we can host cooking classes, and it will be a pillar of the community. I would love it to be a cafe in the day slash mini deli slash little pantry store. But then maybe we open for wine on Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

I have so many ideas floating around my head, with food being the central purpose. I'd be so grateful to be able to do something like that somewhere in LA. It's so wonderful to be able to do pop-ups and supper clubs, and the fact that people come back. I always get questions about when I am going to open something and it really solidifies that I am in the right place and doing the right thing. I feel extremely lucky to enjoy what I do and get a good response from it.