Thomasina Miers | |
---|---|
Born | February 1976 (age 48) Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England |
Education | St Paul's Girls' School |
Alma mater | Ballymaloe Cookery School |
Occupation(s) | cook, writer and television presenter |
Known for | Founder of Wahaca Winner of UK Masterchef (2005) |
Spouse | Mark Williams |
Children | 3 daughters |
Thomasina Jean Miers, OBE (born February 1976) is an English cook, writer and television presenter. She is the co-founder of the Wahaca chain of Mexican street food restaurants.
Thomasina Jean Miers was born in February 1976 in Cheltenham, [1] the daughter of (Michael) Probyn Miers, a joiner and furniture maker, [2] formerly a management consultant [3] [4] and Niki Miers, of Guiting Power, Cheltenham. [5] [6] She grew up in "a big rambling house" at Acton, West London. [7] The Miers family, landed gentry originally of Aldingham, Cumbria (then in Lancashire), owned the Ynyspenllwch estate in Glamorganshire until the time of her grandfather, Cmdr Richard Eustace Probyn Miers, RN. [8] Miers has a twin brother, Dighton, and a sister, Talulah. [9] [7]
She was schooled at St Paul's Girls' School, studied modern languages at the University of Edinburgh and studied at Ballymaloe Cookery School. She worked as a freelance cook and writer, with influences from time spent in Mexico. [10] [11]
In 2005, Miers won the BBC TV cookery competition MasterChef , "impressing judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with her bold and, at times, eccentric cooking style". [12]
She has made two series of cookery programmes for Channel 4 with co-presenter Guy Grieve: Wild Gourmets [13] in 2007 and A Cook's Tour of Spain in 2008. [14] In 2011, she presented Mexican Food Made Simple for Channel 5. [15]
She is co-editor with Annabel Buckingham of the cookbook Soup Kitchen (with an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall). She has also written Cook: Smart Seasonal Recipes for Hungry People, [16] The Wild Gourmets: Adventures in Food and Freedom, with Guy Grieve, [17] and Mexican Food Made Simple. [18]
Miers co-founded Wahaca, which became a chain of Mexican "street food" restaurants, alongside Mark Selby in 2006. [19] The company opened its first restaurant in London's Covent Garden in August 2007 [20] and in October 2008 a second opened at Westfield London. [21] Wahaca launched their first mobile kitchen in 2011, selling Mexican street food on the streets of London. [22] By the end of 2017 Wahaca had 25 branches, [23] and in January 2021 there were 13. [24]
Miers is married to Mark Williams, a fund manager at Liontrust Asset Management [25] and they have three daughters. [5] [26]
In January 2019, Miers was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the food industry; she received the honour from the Duke of Cambridge later in the year at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. [27]
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