Manju Malhi

Manju Malhi was raised in North West London where she grew up surrounded by Indian culture, traditions and lifestyles. She comes from a non-conformist Asian family. Her parents moved to England in the late sixties at a time when things were tough, not only for the host community but for people who were coming from the Indian sub-continent in search of a better life. As an Asian girl growing up in West London, she was bullied at school and sought solace in cooking which she learnt from her mother. She spent several years of her childhood in India where she explored and experienced the vast and varied cuisines of the country. In her cooking, she draws up on her past and combines it with the realities of urban Western life and has come up with her own unique Brit-Indi style of food. It’s easy Indian homecooking. She won the BBC’s Food and Drink competition in 1999 and cooked with Antony Worrall Thompson on BBC2, and was invited back a second time.