“This week marks International Women’s Day. So I couldn’t be prouder to shine a spotlight on our in-house food team – the stellar women who create our delicious, nourishing recipes, week in, week out.
It’s a real labour of love. Every recipe is cooked, tested and tasted (often multiple times, much to everyone’s delight!), so we can strike the perfect balance between flavour, nutrition and seasonality. Each of us brings something unique to the table: I design the menus; Rosie leads on food product development; and the incredible Eva, Izzy and Rachel develop and test recipes down to the tiniest detail. And then there’s our Recipe Editor, Valeria, who ensures that everything we do is communicated beautifully and clearly.
It’s a real privilege to work with such a talented group of women. I hope that this gives you a little insight into the care that goes into everything we do behind the scenes.”
Jesse, Head of Food
Meet our chefs
We caught up with our chef team to find out more about their journeys into food.
Why did you get into cooking?
Rosie: “I actually got into baking first. I absolutely loved baking when I was younger – I used to bake with my mum loads. As I grew up, and particularly during lockdown, I started to take cooking a bit more seriously (like a lot of other people!)”
Eva: “I started cooking at university when I was left to my own devices for the first time. After graduating, I went down the corporate road to start with but then decided I had to follow that passion and love of food. I enrolled at culinary school, then went on to work in restaurants and eventually ended up here.”
Rachel: “I’ve always loved trying new recipes and feeding people. They go hand in hand.”
Izzy: “I grew up in a big family of foodies, so we were always around delicious food – it was inevitable.”
Who are your foodie female inspirations?
Eva: “She’s not in my life (I wish she was!), but Anna Jones has definitely inspired a lot of my food and cooking. She’s encouraged me to cook more plant-based dishes and really hero vegetables.”
Izzy: “I’m really lucky to have grown up around lots of women that love cooking. My granny, auntie and mum all taught me how to cook amazing recipes, so that’s where a lot of my inspiration comes from.”
Rosie: “My Mum and my Gran. I grew up cooking with both of them. My Mum was the first person to teach me how to cook, and my Gran had some amazing recipes she used to cook.”
Jesse: “Instantly someone comes to mind – they’re a really dear family friend. When her kids left home, she moved from London to the middle of nowhere in Spain with a plot of land. For the last 15 or so years, she’s lived off what she grows. Growing up, we visited almost every year and every time we arrived, she’d make a bowl of gazpacho from tomatoes in her garden. I remember first having it when I was 14, and from that day, I knew that food was the path for me.”
Rachel: “There’s lots of incredible celebrity chefs out there. A couple to name would be Angela Hartnett and Ravneet Gill – they’re big inspirations for me.”