Michael Caines

Michael Caines was born in Exeter in 1969 and adopted into a large and loving family. He gained his passion for food from his mother who he used to enjoy helping in the kitchen. Michael attended Exeter Catering College where his precocious talent was already evident, earning him the accolade ‘Student of the Year' in 1987.
Michael Caines is one of Britain's most acclaimed chefs. AA Chef's Chef of the Year in 2007, and awarded an MBE in 2006 for services to the hospitality industry, Michael is an Operational Partner and Director of ABode Hotels and Michael Caines Restaurants, in overall charge of all food and beverage operations throughout the fast-growing group.Since February 2009, he is also Executive Chef at The Bath Priory, Bath, Gidleigh Park's sister establishment.

Merrilees Parker

Merrilees Parker (born 11 August 1971) is a British celebrity chef and TV presenter. She is mainly known for presenting television programmes combining food and travel (Planet Food and Full on Food) as well as various more traditional cookery programmes. Parker is also renowned for the menu she presented working for the pub The Lansdowne in Primrose Hill in London.
Parker's distinguishing characteristics are her no-nonsense cooking style and her passionate method of presenting. Many of her recipes are freely available online.
Parker's presenting style is passionate, open and positive. In her travel documentaries she tastes local foods even if they may sometimes look unappealing to western eyes. She does not believe eating from street restaurants is risky: if something is cooked in front of you in a hot wok it's less likely to give you food poisoning than something that has been sitting on a lukewarm buffet.

Martin Blunos

Martin Lauris Blunos (born 1960-04-11) is a British TV chef. Blunos earned two Michelin Guide stars for each of his two restaurants.His cooking style is influenced by his half Russian half Latvian mother. He did a spell at the Strand Palace Hotel in London, a season in Switzerland and went on many a cruise on a Greek tycoon's yacht before settling down in a job at Lampwick's in Battersea, London.
His first restaurant as chef and owner was Lettonie (French for Latvia) in Bristol, which opened 1988 with a Franco-British style of cooking with some Eastern European elements. He earned his first Michelin star there in 1992, and a second in 1994.[1] In 1997 he moved Lettonie to larger premises in Bath where he was assisted by James Tanner. He is Executive Chef at Hurst House on the Marsh, Laugharne, West Wales.

Mary Berry

Mary Berry is one of the best-known and respected cookery writers and broadcasters in the UK. She started her career as cookery editor of Housewife magazine and later moved to Ideal Home magazine. Since then she has presented and appeared as a guest in countless television series and has written more than 40 cookery books, many of which have sold in their hundreds of thousands.
Mary describes her cooking style as 'family' - practical, healthy recipes that use a little less animal fat and incorporate lots of fresh ingredients. In June 2009, Mary was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Guild of Food Writers.When Mary is not busy working as a broadcaster, she works with her daughter Annabel on the Mary Berry & Daughter Salad Dressings and Sauces, which they launched in 1994.

Mark Hix

Mark Hix moved to London aged 18 to work in the Hilton’s staff canteen: four years later he became head chef at the Candlewick Room Restaurant. His next break was becoming head chef at celebrity haunt Le Caprice; he was eventually named chef-director of Caprice Holdings, the restaurant’s parent company. Mark opened his first restaurant, Hix Oyster and Chop House, near London's Smithfield Market, in 2008. Other eponymous restaurants have followed, mostly located in London.
Mark has written several acclaimed books on British food. He won the Glenfiddich Newspaper Cookery Writer of the Year award in 2003 and was voted Best Cookery Writer by the Guild of Food Writers in 2005. His book, British Seasonal Food, won the Guild of Food Writers' Cookery Book of the Year award in 2009.

Maria Elia

Inspired by her experience cooking in her Greek Cypriot father's restaurant, Maria  Elia always had her heart set on becoming a chef. After a rigorous apprenticeship in some of London's leading kitchens, Maria took positions in a wide range of restaurants and cookery schools in the UK and abroad, including Bangkok’s Oriental Cooking School, El Bulli in Spain, and a job as chef on a private yacht. Maria’s travels informed her classes at London’s Authentic Ethnic Cooking School and provided inspiration during her ten-year tenure as head chef at London's Delfina restaurant.
Maria makes regular appearances on Ready Steady Cook, where she showcases her no-fuss cooking style and eclectic take on seasonal ingredients.

Marcus Wareing

Born in Lancashire, Marcus Wareing’s restaurant career started at The Savoy in London when he was 18. From there he moved to Le Gavroche to work alongside Albert Roux, then fine-tuned his expertise in classic French cooking in international hotels and resorts. In 1993 Marcus began working alongside Gordon Ramsay at London’s Aubergine – it was the start of a long-running professional relationship between the two chefs.
In 1999 he opened Pétrus in London's Knightsbridge, which won a Michelin star within seven months. In 2008 Marcus re-opened the restaurant as chef patron and owner. ‘Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley’ has retained two Michelin stars and five AA rosettes. Marcus has won a string of awards, including GQ chef of the year 2009, AA chef of the year 2009 and in 2010 Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley was named London’s Best Restaurant by Harden’s.

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.

Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey (born 13 August 1933) is an Indian actress, who has also found fame as a food writer, introducing the Western world to the many cuisines of India.Born in Delhi, Madhur Jaffrey came to London aged 19 to study drama at RADA and pursue her passion for acting. It was here that she learnt to cook, effectively by correspondence: while in London, she desperately missed home-cooked food, so her mother would send her recipes.
Madhur acted in TV, film and radio productions in England, then headed to New York, where she wrote food articles to supplement her income and fund her children’s education. This foray into food writing led to hugely successful books and accompanying TV programmes, made popular due to Madhur’s straight-talking approach.

Matt Dunigan

Matt Dunigan (born December 6, 1960 in Lakewood, Ohio) is a former quarterback, coach, and executive in the Canadian Football League who is currently a CFL sportscaster for Canadian sports television channel TSN. In 2006, Dunigan joined the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (#39) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.
In 2008, he was named the host of Road Grill, a Canadian barbecue cooking series on Food Network Canada.

Mark McEwan

Mark McEwan is a Canadian celebrity chef based in Toronto. He is currently the host of Fine Living Network's The Heat with Mark McEwan, a judge on Superstar Chef Challenge, and head judge on Food Network Canada's Top Chef Canada.
In 1981, McEwan was hired by the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto as executive sous chef. Two years later he was promoted to chef. He opened his first restaurant, North 44, in 1990. In August 2007, McEwan opened ONE at The Hazelton Hotel, Toronto's only 5-star hotel. In June 2009, McEwan opened his first grocery store at the Shops at Don Mills. "McEwan" is promoted as an upscale grocery store.

Matt Preston

Born July 1961 in London, Matt Preston is an award winning food journalist, restaurant critic, and television presenter. Raised in Great Britain but based in Melbourne, Matt has dedicated the last 10 years of his life - and about 20 kilos - to tracking down the interesting stories behind the food we eat and the people
who cook it.

 Best known as a judge on MasterChef Australia, and for his weekly Unexplored column in The Age newspaper's Epicure food section, Matt is also a senior editor on Vogue Entertaining + Travel and delicious. magazines.  He is a former National Chair of Judges for the Restaurant and Catering Awards of Excellence and was Creative Director of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival until April 2009.  Matt lives in Melbourne with a wife, three children, a dog, four ovens and a number of trophies for his food writing. 

Martin Yan

Born in Guangzhou, China, to a restaurateur father and a mother who operated a grocery store, Martin Yan possessed a passion for cooking at an early age. His formal induction into the culinary world began at age thirteen, with an apprenticeship at a popular Hong Kong restaurant.

He refined his natural talent at the Overseas Institute of Cookery in Hong Kong, and then pursued an MS in Food Science at The University of California/Davis in the US. He discovered a flair for teaching when he became an instructor in the university’s extension program. In 1978, he pioneered a daily TV Chinese cooking show: the now classic “Yan Can Cook.” Infusing lessons with his characteristic warmth, humor and vitality, he quickly won a devoted following. He developed the show’s format into a culinary travelogue, featuring culinary hot spots throughout Asia.

Marco Pierre White

Marco Pierre White (born 11 December 1961) is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality. He is noted for his contributions to contemporary international cuisine, and his exceptional culinary skills. White has been dubbed the first celebrity chef, the enfant terrible of the UK restaurant scene and the Godfather of modern cooking. White was, at the time, the youngest chef ever to have been awarded three Michelin stars. He has trained chefs such as Gordon Ramsay.
After leaving Allerton High School in Leeds without any qualifications, White decided to train as a chef. He began his training in the kitchen at the Hotel St George in Harrogate, North Yorkshire and later at the Box Tree in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Arriving in London as a 16-year-old with "£7.36, a box of books and a bag of clothes", he began his classical training as a commis under Albert Roux and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche, a period that would lead Albert to describe him as "my little bunny".

Michael Smith

Michael Smith, Canada’s best-known chef is the winner of the James Beard Award for Cooking Show Excellence and host of Chef Abroad, Chef at Home, Chef at Large and The Inn Chef on Food Network Canada and in more than 100 other countries. Currently Michael is in production on a brand new series that will begin airing in Fall 2011 on Food Network Canada.

Michael is Prince Edward Islands official food ambassador, an award winning cookbook author, newspaper columnist, professional chef and home cook. In 2010 he led the team of chefs that cooked for the worlds Olympians in the Whistler Athletes Village.

Mario Batali

Critically acclaimed chef, restaurateur, award-winning author, and television personality, Mario Batali is arguably one of the most recognized and respected chefs working in America today. Together with his business partner Joe Bastianich, the duo have created an uber- successful restaurant and culinary empire in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Singapore.