He is a slim man with a charcoal shirt, orange tie and neatly squared goatee.
We sit and talk among the ash, charcoal and fallen trees, as the sky darkens and squadrons of plump flies buzz at our faces.
Those based in Britain will probably be grateful for the news that, although in an ideal world satay would be cooked over a smoky charcoal grill, at this time of year a smoking-hot griddle pan proves a pretty decent substitute.
In many parts of the world, people are wiping out forests to make charcoal for fuel.
It has a muddy main drag lined with brick buildings with doors of corrugated iron – a small shop, a charcoal store, a dark room full of drunks.
So I agree, George, it would be wrong to have plantations in the tropics just to make charcoal.
Charcoal making might even work instead of landfill for waste paper and plastic.
Standing in the burned-out wreck of the renowned Mackintosh library, where the symphony of cabinetry has been reduced to blackened brick walls and a few charcoal stumps, it looks as if Vesuvius could easily have erupted.
Over recent years, particularly following the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in Katine in 2003, the community resorted to burning charcoal to support their livelihoods.
Some of this is fuelled by demand for wood and charcoal, which the UN estimates is still used in almost 80% of African homes as a cheaper option to gas.
To everyone's surprise, he's moved off the hipster grid to Mayfair, to tiny Kitty Fisher's, rattling the fustiness of that manor with his bravura use of charcoal and a specially designed grill (based on the one at Spain's revered Asador Etxebarri) on ingredients such as beef from Galician milking cows.
