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.

Lorraine Pascale

After several years in the modelling business, Lorraine Pascale decided to look for a new passion and enrolled to study for the year-long Leith’s Diploma of Food and Wine.
Lorraine then did a two-year foundation degree in International Culinary Arts in Pastry and worked in some of the most renowned kitchens in the world, including Petrus, The Mandarin Oriental, Gilgamesh and The Wolseley, later starting her own business making celebration cakes. Lorraine’s first TV series is BBC Two’s Baking Made Easy.
Viewers will be able to watch Lorrraine discuss her love of good food, while she expertly prepares a wide selection of recipes (baking isn’t just about cakes, there are lots of savoury dishes as well) and talks about her love of baking. The book launched alongside the show and shot straight to the top 3 in Amazon’s Food & Drink bestsellers list.

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.

Lotte Duncan

Lotte Duncan is a skilled and highly experienced broadcaster. Recognised as a leading authority on English cooking, Lotte approaches all television presenting with a light, humorous touch. Lotte started out on television by presenting three of her own series - Simply Puddings, Feast Days and Holidays and Quick Cooks on Carlton. Guest appearances also include Channel 4’s The Richard and Judy Show, Ready Steady Cook, Battle of the Chefs, Channel 5’s Open House with Gloria Hunniford, Quick Cooks, Eastenders Revisited, BBC1’s Value for Money, Animal Park, Club Vegetarian, Ideal Home Cooks with Nanette Newman, and Kate Humble’s Webwise programme, where she told the world a thing or two about Tudor food.
She has recently started her own blog entitled Kitchen Chronicles. Her first book, Lotte’s Country Kitchen will be published by Absolute in Spring 2010.

Levi Roots

Keith Valentine Graham (born 24 June 1958), better known as Levi Roots, is a British-Jamaican reggae musician, television personality, celebrity chef, businessman and multi-millionaire currently residing in Brixton, South London. He has performed with James Brown and Maxi Priest and was nominated for a Best Reggae Act MOBO award in 1998. He was a friend of Bob Marley when he resided in the UK and performed "Happy Birthday Mr. President" for Nelson Mandela in 1992 on his trip to Brixton. He gained widespread fame after appearing on the UK television programme Dragons' Den where he gained £50,000 funding for his "Reggae Reggae Sauce".
Levi had a television cooking show, Caribbean Food Made Easy, on BBC2, with a book of the same name publishing in August 2009. The show follows Levi as he travels the UK and Jamaica demonstrating easy ways to cook Caribbean food at home.

Lesley Waters

Lesley Waters (born 3 April 1961) is an English celebrity chef. She regularly appears on such cookery programmes as Ready Steady Cook, and is currently one of the featured chefs on This Morning. London born, she studied French Cuisine at Ealing College for three years, before cooking in top hotels, and winning awards including a scholarship to the Hotel Intercontinental in Düsseldorf. She then joined Prue Leith's restaurant, where she was promoted to senior chef. She then worked as a freelance corporate chef and caterer for government officials before joining Leith’s School of Food and Wine as an instructor, rising to head teacher.Waters started in television in 1989 on various cable TV shows, before Ready Steady Cook and This Morning.

Kevin Woodford

Kevin Woodford, BA (Hons), MHCIMA, Cert ED (born 4 June 1950) is a Manx celebrity chef, actor, television presenter, businessman, hotelier and former restaurateur.He originally trained as a chef and then moved into education as a lecturer in professional cookery. After gaining a higher degree in the Management of Organisations he returned to education as Head of Hotel and Catering Studies at a Granville College in Sheffield.
He was a Senior Examiner for City and Guilds Professional Cookery Examinations, judge at several International Cookery Competitions and worked as a hotel and restaurant consultant for various national and some International organisations.
Woodford owned a restaurant in Douglas, Isle of Man for several years. In 2009 he developed a small boutique hotel called Birchfield House in Douglas, It has received wide acclaim and has since been awarded 5 stars and a Gold Award from the 'VisitBritain' Organisation.

Kenny Atkinson

Born and bred in Newcastle, Kenny Atkinson left school at 16 and fell into cooking after a stint working with his uncle in the kitchens of a local hotel. Once he’d qualified as a chef, he went to cook in Greece, then worked his way up the ranks in kitchens around the UK. He quickly proved his worth, winning Michelin stars soon after joining restaurants in the Scilly Isles and County Durham. Kenny's heart is firmly rooted in the north-east: his classical British food with a modern twist champions locally sourced produce.

Ken Hom

Ken Hom was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona – his Cantonese parents emigrated to the US in the 1920s. Ken learnt to cook from the age of eleven when he started working in his uncle’s Chinese restaurant in Chicago after school and at weekends. In those days he earned around the equivalent of 30p per hour.In order to help pay his University fees he gave cooking lessons which proved so popular that he was recommended to the Culinary Academy.
When the BBC was looking for a Chinese chef to produce a new series he was recommended by Madhur Jaffrey who had seen him giving lessons in California.Ken is now regarded as the world’s leading authority in Chinese cookery and has cooked for many heads of state.

Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd was born at an early age and educated at Wellington School in Somerset. In a chequered career, he was an army officer, a journalist, a dishwasher, a bartender, a cook, a restaurateur, with restaurants in France, Spain, Britain and currently Thailand. He wrote at least 25 books, presented about 20 television series, which are still being shown in over 40 countries worldwide and had recently toured the country with his award winning one man show ‘Floyd Uncorked’. He lived in Provence near Avignon.
During his career, Keith wrote more than 25 books and presented about 20 television series, where he captivated viewers with his special brand of humour. Keith died at his partner's Dorset home in September 2009 after a lengthy illness.

Phil Vickery

Born in Folkestone, Kent, Phil Vickery trained at restaurants in the Lake District before working at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex and Restaurant 74 in Canterbury. Phil’s TV career starter after filling in once for Keith Floyd on the Breakfast Programme, and over the past 15 years he has appeared on the BBC ‘Holiday Programme’, ‘Ready Steady Cook’, ‘Proof Of The Pudding’, his own series ‘Phil Vickery’s Pudding Club’ and of course ‘This Morning’, presenting live and pre-recorded cookery items.
Between his TV work and writing – Phil’s written 8 books, including his most recent, ‘Seriously Good Gluten-Free Cookery’ and ‘Seriously Good Gluten-Free Baking’ – he finds time to farm and spends many hours working on the land and with his livestock.

Peter Gordon

New Zealand-born Peter Gordon is renowned as a leading light of the Antipodean East-West 'fusion' style of cookery. He began his career at the age of 17 as an apprentice in Melbourne; with this grounding he spent a year travelling around South-east Asia, India and Nepal, during which time he developed his signature cooking style.
Peter rode into London on the success of his stint as head chef at New Zealand’s original Sugar Club. When the restaurant branched out to Notting Hill, Peter was appointed head chef and the restaurant picked up a Time Out award only a year later.
In 1999, Peter set up London’s Providores and Tapa Room to critical and public acclaim, as well as launching the charity event Who's Cooking Dinner? in aid of leukaemia research. He is involved in restaurants in Auckland, London, Istanbul and New York, either as a consultant chef or co-owner, and leads various cooking demonstrations.

Sophie Michell

Sophie Michell has been passionate about cooking since she was a child and started working in professional kitchens at the tender age of 14. After qualifying as a chef, Sophie worked in London's The Greenhouse, The Lanesborough, and The Embassy. She was nominated for the Young Chef of the Year Award by The Craft Guild of Chefs when she was just 19. Sophie worked as family chef for supermodel Claudia Schiffer for two years; she then went on to appear in various cookery programmes and wrote her first cookbook, Irresistible. Later, she went back to the kitchen as executive chef for London catering company, Salt and Pepper Food Design. She also does consultancy work.