London chef Margot Henderson's Instagram is epically off-kilter. Her feed, which includes mediocre photos of the fabulous food she serves at the influential lunchtime-only restaurant Rochelle Canteen and blurry candids of loved ones, is the last pillar of hope that we can be our real selves on social media. Sometimes she posts grainy photos of parking lots. Other times she posts three of the same photo in a row—because she's not doing the thing where she edits a photo in VSCO and then selects it from her camera roll. Some are taken on her travels with her husband Fergus, the chef of London's St. John restaurant, and others are just of the faucet of her bathtub. Why not?
When we get too carried away with snapping overhead shots of natural light-drenched grain bowls on social media, we look to Henderson to keep it real. She took a few minutes in the middle of prepping for a pop-up dinner at the Four Horsemen in New York—part of a new visiting chef series, The Fifth Horsemen—to give us a few lessons on how to care less on Instagram.
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There's a lot of work that goes into preparing a great meal, and Henderson isn't hesitant to show the beautiful mess behind the scenes. Photo: Instagram/@margotehenderson
"The sh**ty things are much more interesting, aren't they? When I'm excited about something, I post to say, 'Hey, have a look at this,'" she said. "It's when someone takes you for a second. Sometimes the cruddiness of life is the most interesting thing of all."
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But when you return, return with a vengeance. Photo: Instagram/@margotehenderson
"I like a screen-free weekend. I try to leave my phone upstairs when I can, because I can't be bothered going upstairs to retrieve it," she said. One major downside to staring at your phone all the time? "I'm sure I've got several double chins from looking down at my phone."
"I forget about Instagram for ages sometimes, and I have to remind myself to post. But I like following John Maybury, René and Noma, Jasper Conran, and my family."
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No caption necessary. Photo: Instagram/@margotehenderson
Henderson tells her chefs to stop posting photos of the food at Rochelle Canteen. "It's too much to know exactly what you're going to eat before you eat it. You shouldn't read the menu before you get to the restaurant either. Everyone knows everything these days," she said. "People even know what sex their baby is going to be. You've spent the whole nine months thinking about what you want to call it, and the big mystery goes away in an instant."
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Enjoy the heck out of your pasta the way you're meant to. Only THEN should you photograph it. Photo: Instagram/@margotehenderson
"I post based on what grabs me at the moment. I don't post because I think foodie people will like it, or consider what my family thinks."
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When your life is as truly cool as Henderson's, you don't waste it increasing the saturation on a pic in Snapseed. Photo: Instagram/@margotehenderson
"I can't stand around taking pictures of food and plating. It's not just part of my life," she said. "I'm much more spontaneous than that. Dancing at a party, food, family, the jobs that I do—I just enjoy it. Though, I have to admit, I'm starting to get bored."
Stay tuned for New York pics—she promises they're coming soon, if she can remember to take any (while she's prepping meals for 200+ people). As her friend British fashion designer Jasper Conran once wisely told her, "Please never change your Instagram."