Prue Leith

She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to culinary arts and broadcasting.

She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1989 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to food journalism and broadcasting.

In 1975 she founded Leiths School of Food and Wine which trains amateur and professional chefs. She is a former director of British Rail, Safeway, Whitbread, Woolworths and the Halifax bank and a non-executive director of Orient Express Hotels Ltd. She is former Chair of the Board of Governors of Ashridge Management College, the Restaurants Association of Great Britain, the R. S. A. (Royal Society of Arts) and U. K. Skills. Prue has been seen on television as one of the judges on the BBC's successful series 'Great British Menu' followed by 'Best Of British'. She has had an active career in charity and not-for-profit businesses, helping to found The British Food Trust (which promotes good food), Focus on Food (which teaches schoolchildren to cook), The Hoxton Apprentice (which trains long term unemployed people to be waiters and chefs), 3Es Enterprises (which turns around failing state schools).

In 1969, she opened Leith's, her famous Michelin starred restaurant.

In 1960, she started a business supplying high quality business lunches, which grew to become Leith's Good Food, the party and event caterer.

Prue Leith is an expert on gastronomy and one of the Country's foremost authorities on all things culinary. She is one of the UK's most renowned restaurateurs and caterers, a well known TV cook, broadcaster and cookery writer. She is also known for her formidable business acumen as a past winner of The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year. She has in the past been the cookery correspondent for The Daily Mail, Sunday Express, and The Guardian. She was born 18th February 1940 in South Africa, though she has spent most of her working life in London.