By Chef Ian
I created the Pantry to give home cooks access to the kind of products I’ve used throughout my career — quality ingredients, trusted kitchen tools, and practical shortcuts that genuinely make cooking better.
So many of the products I can readily source through foodservice suppliers, specialty importers, or industry networks are either difficult to find, unavailable in regular supermarkets, or only found if you know exactly where to look. For most home cooks, that can mean driving from one store to another or simply going without.
It’s a collection of products I believe in — not because they’re fashionable, but because they work. Products that help build flavour, save time, reduce waste, and make cooking at home easier and more enjoyable.
√ That includes products like Bone Roasters stocks and sauces — products used in top restaurants and by highly regarded chefs. These are the kind of kitchen foundations professionals rely on for depth, balance, and consistency, and now home cooks can access them too.
√ We also stock Prawn Stock from Silver Sea Seafoods, made with no added salt, flavours, colours, preservatives or thickeners — just honest seafood flavour and a practical pantry shortcut that delivers real results.
√ Then there are the specialty ranges that many home cooks would normally need to visit dedicated stores to find.
√ Our Asian products, including Gozen, Enzo and Saucy Wench, bring those harder-to-source flavours into one place, without needing a trip to a specialist Asian grocer.
√ Our Rustichella pasta and sauces give home cooks access to beautiful Italian pantry staples that go well beyond the standard supermarket shelf.
√ And then there’s the wonderfully bold Drunken Sailor range of “adult” jams and condiments — products full of personality, flavour, and the kind of grown-up edge that can turn something simple into something memorable.
√ The same thinking sits behind The Spice Lab. I created these blends to save people from having to buy a long list of individual herbs and spices just to cook one recipe. Instead, you have purpose-driven blends that work hard in the kitchen, give you dependable flavour, and stop your pantry from filling up with jars that only get used once or twice.
Because spices aren’t collectible items — they’re tools.
The Pantry may be a smaller range at the moment, but that’s intentional. As I source more ingredients that meet the Underground Chef standard, we’ll continue to add them over time. Every product has to pass the UC challenge — it has to be good, practical, and worth having in your kitchen.
There’ll also be a separate story around the equipment range, because the same principle applies there too. These are not gimmicks or clutter items — they’re tools that make life in the kitchen easier for everyone.
The Pantry is about bringing chef-quality products into real home kitchens. It’s about giving people access to the kinds of ingredients and equipment that make cooking easier, more interesting, and far more rewarding.
For me, the Pantry is about closing the gap between what chefs can access through foodservice suppliers and what home cooks can easily find for themselves. It’s about bringing better products into everyday kitchens — ingredients, pantry staples, and practical tools that deliver on quality, flavour, and usefulness.
The Pantry may be a growing collection, but it is built on a clear idea: if a product passes the Underground Chef standard, it belongs here. And as I continue to discover more foodservice and specialty products worth sharing, the Pantry will keep growing with purpose — helping home cooks cook with more confidence, less waste, and a lot more flavour.