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IT’S THE NEW PRUE
As she takes over from Prue Leith on Great British Menu, Andi Oliver tells what she’ll bring to the table – while her co-judges say she’s just like Prue!
With Prue Leith moving to Bake Off, Andi Oliver takes over as a judge on Great British Menu – and she’s just as opinionated...
Mary Berry, what have you started? When the Queen of British cookery contests decided to hang up her Bake Off apron, it set in train a game of musical chairs for foodie presenters everywhere. Her job at the helm of our favourite baking show – or at least the all-new Channel 4 version – was promptly taken by Prue Leith, another grande dame of the industry. Who would, in turn, fill Prue’s shoes though?
For 11 series Prue’s been a judge on Great British Menu, which pitches professional chefs against each other. It’s a springboard for emerging talent and has helped kick-start the careers of Michelin- starred chefs such as Tom Kerridge, Marcus Wareing, Richard Corrigan, Tom Aikens and Angela Hartnett. Prue’s position on the panel was always pivotal. Sandwiched between chef Oliver Peyton and food critic Matthew Fort, she was the outspoken one who kept everyone in check. The Boss, basically.
She also managed to be that rare TV beast – someone with foodie authority but with a sparkling sense of humour and a background so colourful you could call it fluorescent. Prue’s life story has included an affair with the husband of her mother’s best friend, who she later married, and some other racy episodes. How on earth to fill her shoes in this more sedate age? Happily the ‘new Prue’, restaurant owner Andi Oliver, laughs heartily when asked if her past is as ‘interesting’ as Prue’s. ‘ It was fairly hedonistic,’ she admits. ‘But it was easy to be wild and free in those days. If you had a fiver you could go out and party hard. These days you need £200 to go out in London.’
If you’re of a certain age and background you may remember Andi – once known as Andrea – from the 80s music scene. She was in the post-punk band Rip Rig + Panic, which she set up with her brother Sean and best friend Neneh Cherry. One of their claims to fame was that they once performed on The Young Ones, although she doesn’t thank you for reminding her of that one. ‘I looked like a hamster,’ she recalls now. ‘I was so young. I had little chubby cheeks.’
Living off London’s iconic Portobello Road at the time, Andi and Neneh – who went on to have her own, much more famous, solo career – were the queens of a vibrant music scene. They hung out with musicians ( Boy George would come for tea, sometimes rubbing shoulders with the likes of violinist Nigel Kennedy), artists and actors (Keith Allen and
his brother Kevin are, to this day, ‘like family’). She’s now mother – and aunt – to a new generation of cool kids. Her daughter Miquita is a presenter, best known for working for (and being suspended from) T4. Miquita was declared bankrupt in 2011, but in 2013 she made a documentary about her problems aimed at young people. ‘I was so proud of her,’ says Andi. ‘She took a terrible situa- tion and learned from it.’ Neneh’s daughter, meanwhile, is the singer Mabel McVey and Keith’s daughter Lily Allen is Andi’s surrogate niece. So how do you go from being a punk singer to being the new Prue Leith? Well, Andi’s dream of spending her whole life in the music business ended cruelly when her much-loved brother Sean died from sickle cell anaemia aged just 27. Andi was 25. She says she fell apart. ‘It was such a shock. My heart was broken. My spirit was broken. From the outside I was probably high-functioning, but inside I was a broken person.’ The fact that her brother was so integral to the band made it difficult to contemplate a future in music. ‘It wasn’t the same,’ she points out.
After Sean’s death she became involved with the Aids charity Lon- don Lighthouse and, because of her music background, was asked if she wanted to DJ for their radio station. A broadcasting career was born. She would go on to present Baadasss TV and was part of the BBC’s annual coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. Alongside this, though, she was teaching herself to cook. ‘I’m entirely self-taught,’ she says. ‘But quite early on I decided to take it seriously. Food and music have always been the pillars of my life. Food, music and family. What else is there?’
She says she and Neneh Cherry have always communicated through food. ‘It was our thing. It was one of the silent languages of our friendship. We’d get together and experiment in the kitchen. We buzzed off each other. We still do.’ In 2007, the pair fronted a food show together, cementing the idea for Andi that this was the route she wanted to go down. Neneh And Andi Dish It Up went out on BBC2 for six episodes.
In more recent years Andi has turned foodie professional, opening up her own restaurant, Andi’s, in London’s trendy Stoke Newington and becoming a regular on shows such as Food Glorious Food, Saturday Kitchen, The Big Eat and Market Kitchen. She’s currently a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The
‘Winding down at 53? Rubbish! I’m just getting started’ ANDI OLIVER
Kitchen Cabinet, hosted by Jay Rayner. No one could have predicted she’d land a plum telly job at the age of 53 though. She laughs. ‘Yes! I’m still a bit weepy when I think of it, but that might just be because I’m menopausal. There’s this idea that at 53 somehow you’re winding down. Rubbish! I’m just getting started.’
What will Andi bring to the table, so to speak, for this 12th series? She stresses that she’s not looking to replace Prue. ‘We’re very different, so it’s not a case of just replacing her. I think I can bring my passion for food. I can bring all my experience and add something, whether it’s about things I’ve learned at home or in my restaurant.’ She’s on a mission, it seems, to make food sexy and soulful. ‘I don’t think my two loves – music and food – are that different,’ she concludes. ‘They’ve certainly served me well.’
She’s a hoot. Loud, opinionated, uncompromising, yes, but also very warm and with a delicious sense of humour. Won’t she have the other two GBM judges quaking in their boots though? Happily, they’re on hand today to offer their views and the consensus is that she fills Prue’s shoes rather well, considering. ‘I mean it’s a terrifying prospect,’ says awardwinning food writer and restaurant critic Matthew For t . ‘I imagine anyone would be nervous. But the whole thing has been quite seamless. She’s slotted in perfectly.’ Is she as opinionated as Prue? ‘Yes!’
Oliver Peyton, who runs the restaurants at many London galleries including the National, agrees. ‘Oh, she’s just a mini Prue,’ he says. ‘I mean we were all a little nervous of the change. We’ve been doing this together for 11 years, so when I heard Prue was going there was an element of “Oh no!”, but Andi has been a breath of fresh air. And she knows her stuff.’ Hilariously, even though she’s 53, Oliver and Matthew both single out her youthfulness as an asset. ‘ She’s from a much groovier set than we are,’ grins Oliver. ‘Not that it would be hard,’ says Matthew drolly.
It’s always hard to reinvent a show when a key member of the team leaves (as the Bake Off posse will surely find out), and both Oliver and Matthew talk of their dismay when they heard Prue was leaving. ‘She’s gone to the dark side,’ wails Oliver, with only a touch of the dramatics. Then he clarifies. ‘She didn’t leave to go on Bake Off. She’d already stepped down.’ Why? He sighs. ‘Prue always ploughs her own furrow. I think she just wanted something else. She’d just got married. Her life didn’t revolve around the show. It was afterwards that they offered her Bake Off but I don’t think she was planning that.’
Matthew says he doesn’t understand why she left the best job in the business. ‘Getting paid to eat the best food in the land,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t understand why she’d give that up.’ Has he considered that 11 years in the same job is enough? ‘No, because the programme evolves. It’s a very different show to the one it was 11 years ago.’
The format this year is unchanged though. The first eight weeks are heats, in which three chefs from one region
of the UK cook different courses from Monday to Thursday. Their efforts are judged by one of eight competition veterans, before one contestant is eliminated and the other two then present their full four-course menu to Andi, Matthew and Oliver, plus a guest judge, on the Friday. The winner of this contest goes forward to the final week, for the chance to cook a course at the grand finale banquet. Back when the show star ted in 2006, it was quite difficult to get professional chefs on it. ‘Many were reluctant,’ says Oliver. ‘They had too much to lose, because if they were voted out in the early stages it might reflect badly on them and their business.’
Gradually, though, the idea of the programme being a bona fide showcase for culinary talent won through. What changes have they seen – apart from the obvious, in that the careers of so many winners have gone stratospheric? ‘Well, when we started the chefs from places like Northern Ireland or Wales were not performing at the same level as the chefs from the big conurbations, and now they are. It shows how much more demand there is for good food outside the big cities,’ says Oliver.
The show always features guest judges, and when this year’s crop was revealed a few eyebrows were raised. The grand banquet will be served at Wimbledon this time, and the judges will include tennis stars Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski, and that most famous of tennis mums, Judy Murray. Do any of them know anything about food though? ‘You’d be surprised! I certainly was,’ says Matthew. ‘But when you think about it they’re all very well travelled and most of them have eaten in the best restaurants in the world.’ He was pleasantly surprised too with how inventive the competing chefs were when it came to creating dishes that summed up the essence of Wimbledon. ‘I groaned when I first heard because I thought, “Oh no, how many strawberries are we going to have to eat?” But actually there weren’t nearly as many as you’d think.’ Great British Menu returns on Tuesday at 7pm on BBC2.
‘She’s a breath of fresh air, and she knows her stuff’ OLIVER PEYTON