/ 24 June 2025

Alexandra Dudley’s Working Lunch

We’ve all been there – stuck for weekday lunch inspiration the moment Monday morning arrives. In this monthly column, SheerLuxe contributor Alexandra Dudley serves up fresh, easy ideas – whether you work from home, like to take a lunchbox into the office or are hoping to head out for a meal. For this early summer edition, she’s sharing a simple butterbean salad – and giving us the lowdown of one of her top lunch spots of 2025 so far…

Alexandra Dudley

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STAYING IN

Charred Spring Onion Butterbean Pecorino Dill Salad

I’m in a phase of charring everything, specifically spring onions. They char quickly and add such good flavour to anything. I’ve also been enjoying them spooned over scrambled eggs on toast. Here they are stirred through butter beans with lots of lemon and thin shavings of pecorino.

Ingredients

80g of spring onions

Olive oil

Salt

500g of butter beans

Zest 1 lemon, juice of half

Approx. 40g of pecorino, shaved

Large handful basil leaves

Method

Step 1

Heat a griddle pan or frying pan over a high heat and toss the spring onions in olive oil and salt. Cook for approximately four or five minutes until well charred and soft in the centre. Allow to cool slightly then roughly chop.

Step 2

Add the butter beans to a large bowl along with the spring onions, lemon zest and juice, a good slosh of olive oil and pinch of salt. Add the basil and use a peeler to shave in the pecorino. Toss everything together and enjoy.

GOING OUT

Bottarga, Chelsea

I finally managed to get a table at Bottarga for lunch and it did not disappoint. It’s just the sort of food I love to eat. Fresh and vegetable focused with a large amount of the menu cooked on a big open grill. My advice is to get all the dips, especially spicy feta red pepper. The crispy calamari with chilli jam mayo is also a must-try. But it was the bluefin tuna with roasted pepper and lemon that really stood out for me – a deliciously soft grilled Romano pepper slipped out of its skin before being layered with hot pink bluefin tuna. The stem of the pepper is left on – I’m sure in part to help keep the tuna in place – but it’s also a wonderful nod to the skill of the kitchen who know how to bring a level of subtle and unpretentious level of elegance to simple ingredients. This is going up there in my top ten meals of the year.

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For more from Alexandra, follow @ALEXANDRADUDLEY & visit ALEXANDRADUDLEY.COM