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Prue Leith
Dame Prudence Margaret Leith, DBE (born 18 February 1940) is a South African and British restaurateur, broadcaster, cookery writer, novelist, chef, and former university administrator.
Leith was a judge on BBC Two's Great British Menu for eleven years, from 2005-16. She left it to join The Great British Bake Off in March 2017, replacing Mary Berry as a judge, when the television programme moved to Channel 4. She remained a judge until 2025. She was Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh from 2016 to 2024.
Leith was born on 18 February 1940 in Cape Town, then Cape Province, now Western Cape, South Africa.
In 1960, Leith moved to London to attend the Cordon Bleu Cookery School and then began a business supplying high-quality business lunches. This grew to become Leith's Good Food, a party and event caterer. In 1969, she opened Leith's, her Michelin-starred restaurant in Notting Hill, eventually selling it in 1995. In 1975, she founded Leith's School of Food and Wine, which trains professional chefs and amateur cooks. The group reached a turnover of £15 million in 1993. She sold it and, in 1995, helped found the Prue Leith College, since renamed Prue Leith Chef's Academy, and Prue Leith Culinary Institute in South Africa. Odd Plate Restaurant[clarification needed] was renamed Prue Leith's Restaurant.
The first woman appointed to the British Railways Board in 1980, Leith set about improving its much-criticised catering. The catering division, Travellers Fare, was detached from the hotels business in 1982 with outlets created, including Casey Jones and Upper Crust. Leith left British Rail in September 1985.
Concurrently with running her business, Leith became a food columnist for, successively, the Daily Mail, Sunday Express, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. Aside from writing 12 cookery books, including Leith's Cookery Bible, she has written eight novels: Leaving Patrick, Sisters, A Lovesome Thing, Choral Society, A Serving of Scandal, The Food of Love: Laura's Story, The Prodigal Daughter, and The Lost Son. The last three form the Angelotti Chronicles or Food of Love trilogy. Her memoir, Relish, was published in 2013.
Her first television appearance was in the 1970s as a presenter of two 13-episode magazine series aimed at women at home, made by Tyne Tees Television. She was a last-minute replacement for Jack de Manio, and with no experience and a director who liked everything scripted, including interviews, she disliked the experience. Later, in the 1980s, she was the subject of two television programmes about her life and career: the first episode of Channel 4's Take Six Cooks and the BBC's The Best of British, a series about young entrepreneurs. In 1999, she was one of the Commissioners on Channel 4's Poverty Commission. She returned to television to be a judge on The Great British Menu for 11 years until 2016 and a judge for My Kitchen Rules, which she left to replace Mary Berry in The Great British Bake Off. In January 2026, She announced her retirement from the Bake Off in an instagram post.
She has been involved in food in education. When chair of the Royal Society of Arts she founded and chaired the charity Focus on Food (now part of the Soil Association) which promotes cooking in the curriculum. She also started, with the charity Training for Life, the Hoxton Apprentice; a not-for-profit restaurant which for ten years trained the most disadvantaged long-term unemployed young people. Until 2015, she was a member of the Food Strand of the grant-giving foundation, Esmée Fairbairne. From 2007 to 2010, she was the Chair of the School Food Trust, the government quango largely responsible for the improvement in school food after Jamie Oliver's television exposé of the poor state of school dinners. The Trust (now the Children's Food Trust) also set up and runs Let's Get Cooking, an organisation of over 5,000 cooking clubs in state schools, of which she is a patron.[citation needed] She is vice-president of The Sustainable Restaurant Association; a trustee of Baby Taste Journey (an education charity concerned with healthy food for infants); Patron of The Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour, Sustain's Campaign for Better Hospital Food, and the Prue Leith Chef's Academy in her native South Africa.[citation needed]
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Prue Leith
Dame Prudence Margaret Leith, DBE (born 18 February 1940) is a South African and British restaurateur, broadcaster, cookery writer, novelist, chef, and former university administrator.
Leith was a judge on BBC Two's Great British Menu for eleven years, from 2005-16. She left it to join The Great British Bake Off in March 2017, replacing Mary Berry as a judge, when the television programme moved to Channel 4. She remained a judge until 2025. She was Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh from 2016 to 2024.
Leith was born on 18 February 1940 in Cape Town, then Cape Province, now Western Cape, South Africa.
In 1960, Leith moved to London to attend the Cordon Bleu Cookery School and then began a business supplying high-quality business lunches. This grew to become Leith's Good Food, a party and event caterer. In 1969, she opened Leith's, her Michelin-starred restaurant in Notting Hill, eventually selling it in 1995. In 1975, she founded Leith's School of Food and Wine, which trains professional chefs and amateur cooks. The group reached a turnover of £15 million in 1993. She sold it and, in 1995, helped found the Prue Leith College, since renamed Prue Leith Chef's Academy, and Prue Leith Culinary Institute in South Africa. Odd Plate Restaurant[clarification needed] was renamed Prue Leith's Restaurant.
The first woman appointed to the British Railways Board in 1980, Leith set about improving its much-criticised catering. The catering division, Travellers Fare, was detached from the hotels business in 1982 with outlets created, including Casey Jones and Upper Crust. Leith left British Rail in September 1985.
Concurrently with running her business, Leith became a food columnist for, successively, the Daily Mail, Sunday Express, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. Aside from writing 12 cookery books, including Leith's Cookery Bible, she has written eight novels: Leaving Patrick, Sisters, A Lovesome Thing, Choral Society, A Serving of Scandal, The Food of Love: Laura's Story, The Prodigal Daughter, and The Lost Son. The last three form the Angelotti Chronicles or Food of Love trilogy. Her memoir, Relish, was published in 2013.
Her first television appearance was in the 1970s as a presenter of two 13-episode magazine series aimed at women at home, made by Tyne Tees Television. She was a last-minute replacement for Jack de Manio, and with no experience and a director who liked everything scripted, including interviews, she disliked the experience. Later, in the 1980s, she was the subject of two television programmes about her life and career: the first episode of Channel 4's Take Six Cooks and the BBC's The Best of British, a series about young entrepreneurs. In 1999, she was one of the Commissioners on Channel 4's Poverty Commission. She returned to television to be a judge on The Great British Menu for 11 years until 2016 and a judge for My Kitchen Rules, which she left to replace Mary Berry in The Great British Bake Off. In January 2026, She announced her retirement from the Bake Off in an instagram post.
She has been involved in food in education. When chair of the Royal Society of Arts she founded and chaired the charity Focus on Food (now part of the Soil Association) which promotes cooking in the curriculum. She also started, with the charity Training for Life, the Hoxton Apprentice; a not-for-profit restaurant which for ten years trained the most disadvantaged long-term unemployed young people. Until 2015, she was a member of the Food Strand of the grant-giving foundation, Esmée Fairbairne. From 2007 to 2010, she was the Chair of the School Food Trust, the government quango largely responsible for the improvement in school food after Jamie Oliver's television exposé of the poor state of school dinners. The Trust (now the Children's Food Trust) also set up and runs Let's Get Cooking, an organisation of over 5,000 cooking clubs in state schools, of which she is a patron.[citation needed] She is vice-president of The Sustainable Restaurant Association; a trustee of Baby Taste Journey (an education charity concerned with healthy food for infants); Patron of The Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour, Sustain's Campaign for Better Hospital Food, and the Prue Leith Chef's Academy in her native South Africa.[citation needed]
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