Allegra McEvedy

McEvedy was born and raised in Hammersmith. Interviewed by The New York Times, she said, "Mine was all about what we’d had for breakfast and the great ice cream we had in Florence that afternoon."[2] Her father Colin McEvedy was a consultant psychiatrist, historian and writer; her mother was a writer.[3] She was privately educated at St Paul's Girls' School,[4] attending the school at the same time as Daisy Garnett, later food columnist of The Observer.[3]

McEvedy completed her classical French training in 1991 at the Cordon Bleu in London. She also obtained the Higher Certificate from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

She later worked at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, Green's, The Belvedere in Holland Park, Alfred's, the Groucho Club and The River Café. She obtained her first Head Chef position at Tom Conran's restaurant The Cow, in Notting Hill, at the age of 24.

During a spell in the United States, facilitated by being awarded a special visa as 'an alien with extraordinary ability in the culinary arts', McEvedy worked at Rubicon and Jardinière in San Francisco, and ran the kitchen at Robert De Niro's New York City restaurant Tribeca Grill, regularly doing 500 covers a night. Whilst in New York she catered for an exclusive Democratic Party fundraiser, personally cooking for President Clinton. However, she became disillusioned with cooking "posh food for rich people",[5] and put into action a plan to specialise in affordable dining when she returned to the UK.

Upon returning to London, McEvedy joined The Good Cook group, initially as Head Chef of The Tabernacle, a community restaurant in Notting Hill, and later as Head Chef of The Good Cook in Kensington High Street. In summer 2000 she set up the first outdoor café in the Zaha Hadid Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery. Between 2002 and 2004, she was the inaugural Chef in Residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. McEvedy opened Blackfoot, a pork-focused restaurant in Exmouth Market, London, in December 2013; it remained open until February 2016.

In August 2006, she formed a civil partnership with Susi Smither.[3] The couple dissolved their civil partnership in 2012.[11] She was engaged to Jack Monroe but the relationship ended in 2015, before they married.[12][13]

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours for services to the hospitality industry.[14][15]

McEvedy's mother died when she was aged 17. As a consequence of this, and the stress arising from coming out as gay, she found adjusting to adult life difficult and was expelled from school, though she nevertheless took and passed her A-levels.[3]

• The Good Cook (2000)
• Allegra's Colour Cookbook (2006)
• Colouring the Seasons: A Cook's Guide, co-authored with Fred Dickieson (2007)
• Leon: Ingredients & Recipes (2008)
• Economy Gastronomy: Eat Better and Spend Less, co-authored with Paul Merrett (2009)
• Turkish delights with Allegra McEvedy (2012)
• Bought, Borrowed & Stolen: Recipes and Knives from a Travelling Chef
• Big Table, Busy Kitchen: 200 Recipes for Life (2013)
• Around the World in 120 Recipes (2013)
• Quick, Quick, Slow (2016)

• Official website
• Allegra McEvedy at IMDb