Michael Caines, Gidleigh Park, Dartmoor

Chefs are just terrible for picking at things and I've learnt that if I've got, say, pork pies in the fridge they'll go - so I try to have a couple of things in to pick on like hummus and pitta breads, brazil nuts and roasted cashews and dried fruit. To make a quick cheat's hummus, drain a tin of chickpeas, keeping a bit of the liquid, and blend with crushed garlic, olive oil, - and just a little bit of mayonnaise. It gives a lovely texture.

I also like quick pasta salads. We might occasionally buy them, but I've got kids so they like to make up a little pasta salad. And we always have salad in the fridge, which is easy to make when you're tired.

I also eat fruit - at the moment bananas, apples, some great plums and pears are coming into season. I do try to pick on stuff that's healthy - we don't have any chocolate in the house, and biscuits are limited because, like anyone, I'll go for them.

Alexis Gauthier, Roussillon, Pimlico

I don't eat when I go home - like many chefs, I eat throughout service by tasting the food we are serving. I never eat unless I am hovering over a saucepan - a little bit here, a little bit there - so when I go home the last thing I feel like doing is eating.

I only eat a proper meal at weekends. I cook anything seasonal then, but mostly vegetables. This weekend I cooked ratatouille and I ate it on its own with grilled pain Poilâne. It's not to everybody's taste but I find it delicious.

I never eat puddings because I eat too many during the week - I may look like a stick but all this tasting wreaks havoc with your figure. It's all hidden under my chef's whites but I run a lot so that helps keep me reasonably sane and fit.

Sally Clarke, Clarke's Restaurant, Kensington

Eating on the run for me usually means seasonal fruit. When you can get them, figs are lovely - I slice them on to a plate, and drizzle with great olive oil, add Maldon salt and pepper, and scatter with "Sally's Pick 'n' Mix"(dried fruits and nuts mix). Then I just add salad leaves on top with some parmesan shavings. It sounds complicated, but it's really easy to throw together.

Theo Randall, Theo Randall at the Intercontinental, Mayfair

When I get back from work, I just fall flat into bed - I don't eat anything. I don't get home until after one in the morning and I hate eating late at night because it stops me from sleeping.

I usually have something light to eat in the afternoon - some pasta or maybe a bowl of soup or a prosciutto sandwich. Yesterday I had a delicious roasted slip sole cooked in the wood oven. I tend to eat light food because I don't have the time to do anything too complicated and rich food just doesn't agree with me - I hate foie gras for example.

I always have a big breakfast - yoghurt, muesli, a large bowl of fruit. We eat with the kids before I take them to school. It sounds idyllic, all sitting down to a family breakfast but it's the only time I see them.

Matt Foxon, The Rosendale, West Dulwich

After a long day in the kitchen I go for fried eggs on toast: it's a classic snack that's easy to put together. I always use wholemeal bread which is usually better fresh from a bakery. I cut two thick slices and toast them lightly, then fry a large, free-range organic egg in generous amounts of salted butter. Finally I add some crushed sea salt and a little Tabasco sauce.

Chas Tapaneyasastr, Lamberts, Balham

I like to spend my days off practising cooking so I make whatever the missus fancies eating, then live off what's left over for the rest of the week. But if she's not around, or I don't have time to cook, then I tend to exist on beer and nachos. If you spend the whole day running around at 100 miles an hour then your brain has to go at the same pace to keep up. At the end of the day I find that a cold beer, some nachos and metal music calms me down. I also make a cracking pizza - sometimes I make five, stick them in the fridge and eat them cold (with a Corona of course) when I get home.

Last week was manic in the restaurant and when I got home on Sunday night I cooked some rice, blanched some seaweed and whatever veg were left in the fridge and cooked it up with tuna stock and soy sauce.

Paul Kitching, Juniper, Altrincham

I'm not a big eater at the end of work - I like to have a drink, but my other chefs who are a bit younger than me tend to rely on food a lot more. They go for kebabs after work - which isn't my sort of thing, but there's a kebab shop that's open till 4am down the road from Juniper, which is great for when we finish at two or three in the morning. There's a mutual respect between the guys in the kebab shop and Juniper - we always get the fresh iceberg and the fresh chillis.

Daniel Clark, Suka, Sanderson Hotel, Soho

If I need to cook a 15-minute meal at home, my favourite meal is spaghetti with chorizo and prawns. Once you've got your spaghetti on, add butter and oil to a large non-stick saucepan over a medium-high heat, and saute some diced chorizo for one minute. Then add half a yellow onion, and saute for another minute, before adding 75g of cleaned black tiger prawns, 50g of sun-blushed tomatoes and a long, red chilli and cooking for another two minutes.

By this point, the spaghetti should be ready. Drain it, and toss the spaghetti into a large bowl. Pour the contents of the saucepan over the bowl, add the basil, and drizzle with lime juice. If you're really pushed for time, you can put the oil, butter, basil and chilli in a blender and use that as the base. I normally make always a bit more from it and use it for garlic bread ·