APhilip Dundas — Writer
Philip Dundas

Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke

Philip Dundas grew up adopted, on a farm in rural Scotland with a walled garden, and books.

He has spent the decades since working out what to do with all of it — as a waiter, a music industry press agent, a BBC producer, a restaurant owner, a gardener, a food writer, a novelist and now a playwright working at his kitchen table in New York's West Village.

Latest from A Boy in the Kitchen

25 June 2026
Deaf for a While
For a while I turned away from the world. They thought I couldn't hear them.
Read on Substack →
5 June 2026
Corpus Christi
From across the valley the bells of what the locals know as the Cathedral of the Highlands begin to clang.
Read on Substack →
26 April 2026
Delusions of Grandeur
My heart stopped a few beats as I opened the letter from social services.
Read on Substack →

Writing

He has written on lifestyle and culture for a range of newspapers.

As a food writer, Philip was represented by Maggie Hanbury.

He is the author of Cooking Without Recipes (Little Brown, 2011) and the novel Daniel, at Sea (Backlash Press, 2020).

He has recently completed the script of his first play, Dead & Wounded. Currently in development.

His opinion pieces in The Times on the abuse and violence in Scotland's elite schools have helped bring justice for survivors and contributed to one of the largest school abuse inquiries in Scottish legal history.

A Boy in the Kitchen

Philip's Substack is where the memoir is finding its public shape — essay by essay, from the same table where he makes his tea and thinks about everything else.

Essay · June 2026
Deaf for a While
For a while I turned away from the world. They thought I couldn't hear them.
Read →
Essay · June 2026
Corpus Christi
From across the valley the bells of what the locals know as the Cathedral of the Highlands begin to clang.
Read →
Essay · April 2026
Delusions of Grandeur
My heart stopped a few beats as I opened the letter from social services.
Read →
Substack
All essays
Visit A Boy in the Kitchen →

About

Philip Dundas grew up adopted, on a farm in rural Scotland. He was expelled from school at seventeen, drifted through a wilderness of drugs, bad luck and borrowed talent, and came out the other side with a ferocious appetite for life and a talent for starting over.

He read English at Oxford and took an MPhil by research at Glasgow. He spent six years as Senior Producer at the BBC, leading the Digital Curriculum team. Before that he had worked the music business — press officer to the London Records artists — until that life ran its course. After the BBC he co-founded PipsDish, a restaurant and community food enterprise in London that fed thousands over five years and took him into a youth offenders' prison in Belfast to cook.

His food blog, launched in 2007, was nominated for a Guild of Food Writers Award. Cooking Without Recipes was published by Little Brown in 2011. His novel Daniel, at Sea was published by Backlash Press in 2020. He has recently completed the script of his first play, Dead & Wounded, currently being developed with a director in New York. He has written on lifestyle and culture for a range of newspapers.

When a BBC programme in 2022 exposed decades of sexual abuse at his Edinburgh school, he came forward, gave evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, and wrote about it in The Times. He helped bring criminal charges against teachers who had assumed, correctly until then, that silence would hold.

He is now writing Clype.

Daniel, at Sea, published in 2020 and subsequently revised page by page in close collaboration with a Sunday Times bestselling author, remains available for representation.

Drawing by Keith Vaughan, c.1946

Drawing by Keith Vaughan, c.1946

Contact

philip@philipdundas.com