I live in De Beauvoir in Hackney, which is French for Dalston. I’ve lived here for just over 10 years, in the house my wife grew up in with her mum, who now lives in the garage (which we’ve tarted up). We have three kids, who are nine, six and two. It’s a good hobby.

In Hammersmith, on Brook Green. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. One of the big differences is that when I go back to west London and cycle around, I feel like the enemy, whereas in east London it’s a joy and a pleasure.

I worked at Harrods during the summer holiday, in the golf clothing department, and it was comically horrible. It was during the reign of Mohamed Al-Fayed and he would go around firing people. We were paid virtually nothing and had to pay to use the toilet. I think it cost about an hour’s wage to go for a pee.

My go-to restaurant is Sweet Thursday in De Beauvoir, which is family-run and makes the best pizza in London — maybe even the world. It’s healthy and delicious, with ingredients sourced locally; just what food should be.

The place I spend more money than I can really afford is Turner and George, a butcher on St John Street. We don’t eat very much meat for lots of reasons, but when we do it’s from there. St Vincent’s charity shop on Kingsland Road often has gems, including some very nice Rise and Fall T-shirts. The Flower Appreciation Society is great if you need a gift, homeware or local flowers.

The Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL. It’s a two-room museum and there is a higher density of fascinating stuff than any other museum on planet Earth. Then I would go cold-water swimming at the reservoir in Stoke Newington and to the Scolt Head pub to finish off the evening, so I could stagger home.

I would extend what the Mayor is already doing, which is making London a better city for walking and bikes. Seventy per cent of people in Hackney don’t have access to a car and we have built this city for cars. It’s just not safe. If there was one really dictatorial thing I could do, it would be to require all cars in London to have electronic speed limiters so they could only drive at 20 miles an hour inside the city.

Lord Khan. I don’t say that with a party-political hat on. But what he’s done against enormous power to make life better for all Londoners, rich and poor, is just astounding. Crime, air quality, traffic — everything has got better. I’m not endorsing him as a mayoral candidate, but he’s made things better for people who hated him, opposed him and made it difficult every step of the way.

Did you not listen to my answer about having kids…? My brother-in-law is in a small indie band called Video Shop — it’s much more than a dad band. One of my most exciting recent nights out was going to see them at a bar under the Haggerston Arches. Another was Jesse Welles at the Electric Ballroom — he’s the new Bob Dylan.

Oh, that’s easy. My dad Anthony van Tulleken is an artist. One of his oil paintings is above my bed, of a landscape in Canada. He taught art at Wormwood Scrubs prison and his portraits of the people he worked with, which hang on our living room wall, are also very special.

We’ve got friends who live nearby who run the Instagram account called De Beauvoir Home, which is very beautiful. Our kids are friends, so rather than fixing up our own house, we just go to theirs for entertainment.

Right now, I’m finishing up my patient notes from my last NHS clinic. I’ve almost finished a kids’ book about food and the food system with Penguin and I’m about to start making a big series on food for the BBC. I’m also about to publish a scientific paper with the World Health Organisation about how our definitions of unhealthy food in the UK don’t capture a lot of food that is really unhealthy.

I work one day a week in the NHS at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, with colleagues who work six, seven days a week. Some of them work essentially eight days a week. They work so hard. Maybe it’s a bit corny, but it’s the best job I do.

As told to Jessica Burrell