In Search of Fungi

Growing up, chef and musician Reuben Kyriakides was disgusted by mushrooms, harbouring an aversion shared with many diners. “You couldn’t pay me to eat them,” he emphasises when we speak over Zoom with his partner musician Ella Harris. Less typical is how his relationship with fungi subsequently morphed into a fixation that now shapes most areas of his life, permeating his work and, often, his personal life. The couple’s Mile End home, notes Ella, is adorned with posters championing the many forms and radical potential of mushrooms.

Previously a chef at London-based tapas and mezze restaurant Morito, Reuben recalls being served wild mushrooms cooked on a charcoal grill as the initial catalyst. “My boss said, ‘You should try this, it's not like other mushrooms.’ It was insanely good.” Some time later, in 2019, he was invited to join a forager the restaurant worked with on a foraging trip to Kent, and a new preoccupation emerged. “The depth of flavour, the texture – it made me realise how narrow-minded my opinion about mushrooms was. They're not just little buttons, they're all shapes and sizes, colours and smells.”

A sound artist, musician and composer alongside his current job at the Soho post of Middle Eastern restaurant Bubala, the chef has been privy to the world of cooking and restaurants since childhood. His pappoú (grandfather) worked in cafes before finding a job cooking in a bank for the employees. Reuben recalls “he had lots of funny and interesting stories about the different contexts in which he cooked for people.”

This focus on storytelling is keenly echoed in Reuben’s own approach to food, though he admits it can become complicated in a formal setting. “I really like cooking for people I love, so cooking in restaurants is hard sometimes because you don't get the pleasure of sitting down with people and telling the story of the food. When you forage your own food and cook it, it’s the most amazing feeling.”

“Finding a mushroom that's untouched, in its prime, ready to be picked, feels like a very serendipitous moment,” he continues. “It's like a whole secret kingdom that we're sort of living alongside. It’s this beautiful, magical ecosystem, and most people don't even realise it’s there. As soon as you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. It really gets you in tune with the seasons as well, because it's a seasonal practice.”

“I've never seen anyone more excited for autumn than Ruby,” observes Ella. It was winter when the couple first began dating, and she recalls being ill and Reuben making her broths from the mushrooms he’d foraged. She felt better almost instantly. “I hadn’t experienced that before. I like to cook, but I never really thought about eating for the time of year,” she explains. Today they forage together, frequently, quietly (concentration being as paramount as curiosity), and ideally in September, when the conditions are best. “It’s such a nice way to end the summer,” Ella tells me, “and really intrinsic to that transitional period in nature, sort of reaping what the land provides – a product of the rain and hot soil from the summer months.”

This introduction to a more seasonal approach to food has transformed how Ella engages with it, furthering her political understanding about the way we eat. “It's got me thinking about more radical, sustainable infrastructure. I’d love everyone to be equipped with that knowledge, and more people practising it so we're not just shipping avocados from the other side of the world,” she says. “We can eat more seasonally, more locally, more sustainably. The insight has transformed how I see food – it’s really special.”

Sharing the information he’s acquired – from his own book-based research as well as those early trips to Kent – is similarly important for Reuben, and he set up a WhatsApp group last year to realise this side of it. “I started a community to share the knowledge I've gathered, passing on a sort of torch, rather than trying to capitalise on something. Some foragers make a living from teaching how to forage, and I don't think that’s a problem, but it didn't feel right for me,” he says. “There's such a tangible energy for learning these ancient skills,” adds Ella.

While Reuben ultimately hopes to see foraging become as normalised as picking blackberries – “wild garlic is probably getting to that point; people know what it looks like and what time it grows” – on a personal level, this heightened understanding of how nature operates has encouraged new thinking about his own relationship to time. “It's connected me to this idea of impermanence, not being so attached to things. Sometimes I come back [from foraging] and my basket is empty because I didn't find anything. It’s the experience, the process of going out and looking, which is the really valuable thing. I’ve taken that feeling into other aspects of my life too, like how I practice my music or spend time with Ella.”

“It’s very grounding,” he continues, describing the practical, hands-on nature of the work. “I don't check my phone, it’s like a different brain state. It feels like a time-honoured practice.” Ella agrees, “Walking on a forest floor, the possibility is endless – you want to search every single corner, because who knows what you could find.”