Interview with Ayesha Kalaji representing Wales on Great British Menu 2025 – Women In the Food Industry

Great British Menu (GBM) returned to our screens in January for season 20. The BBC2 show puts the nation’s most talented chefs to the test. At Women in the Food Industry we are continuing our series of interviews with the strong female line-up of chefs from across Britain competing to serve their dish at the final banquet. Our co-founder, Mecca Ibrahim, interviewed Ayesha Kalaji chef owner of  Queen of Cups, in Glastonbury with two Michelin bib gourmands since opening in 2021.

Originally from Anglesey, Ayesha is representing Wales

How did you start working in the food world and where did you train to be a chef?

The food world was never really the route I had planned when I was young. I went to university and did Middle Eastern studies with the hopes of becoming a war correspondent for a news outlet.  I really wanted to be involved in journalism or politics or some combination of the two. But as my degree crept on, I realised I wasn’t wild about it. As soon as I started to study something that I was interested in, I lost the love of it.

However, I’d always loved food and cooking and feeding people and going out for meals, but I had never really considered it a viable career simply because my Dad’s a professor.

But I was so unhappy at University. And I remember my mum said to me, what about going to Leith’s School of Food and Wine?  So actually it was kind of the obvious thing all along, and I just never considered it. The agreement was that I had to finish my degree.

I remember my first day at Leith’s. The first lecture was three hours on eggs. I knew immediately I was in the right place. It was like that light bulb moment and everything was right.

I spent a year studying, at Leith’s for my diploma, and I still maintain it was one of the best years of my life. You’re just surrounded by other people who love food. In fact, I’m going back there next month to teach the current cohort. I’ll be able to share, my experience and where I’ve come from and what I’ve done since being at Leith’s 10 years ago.

What happened after Leith’s?

At Leith’s I did some work experience at The Palomar and they asked me if I would like a full time job afterwards. I jumped at the chance.  It was the year they won the Observer Restaurant of the Year.  So it’s where I cut my teeth. I started because I knew how to cook. But doing service is a whole different ball game. It was tough, it was hard. It was fast paced and I cried a lot in the dry store for my first six months. But ultimately I loved the experience. I still credit it as being one of the greatest influences I had.

In my restaurant now because I have an open kitchen where I can talk to customers. The fact that the first restaurant I worked at was an open kitchen really helped cement that into me. So I look back on it so fondly.

After that I went up to North Wales and spent some time working at Michelin Starred Sosban and The Old Butchers.

Then I came back to London where I was at The Good Egg for a while, almost two years and then I went to work for Helen Graham when she was Exec Chef at Bubula. So I’ve generally rotated around the modern Middle Eastern restaurant world.

But I wanted to carve out my own space as there had never been an Arab owned modern Middle Eastern restaurant with Michelin star qualities, so I opened Queen of Cups in 2021. Since then we’ve won Michelin bib gourmands, featured in Estrella’s top 50 gastropub list, and won a Be Inclusive Hospitality Middle Eastern Award.

This is your first time on Great British Menu, how did you get onto the show ?

I think the fact that I’d done MasterChef The Professionals the previous year definitely helped. I was the girl who did the entire skills test and didn’t stop talking and still smashed it. So I was memorable, to say the least. I like being in front of the camera.  I like to talking about food. So I think the Great British Menu casting team had an idea that I would be good for it. I got an email saying, would you be interested in considering Great British Menu? And I did a test shoot with them over Zoom.

Then a few days later, I was walking down the street and I got a phone call. They said would you like to take part in it? My immediate response shock & swearing. So I said sorry, I didn’t mean that and said yes, I would love to.

How was it researching for the Great Britons theme?

I must admit, it was a bit harder for me to a certain extent, because I’ve not lived in Wales since I was 18. So my connection to Wales isn’t as strong as it as some of the other chefs who live there and work there. The first thing I did was call my mom because she’s an inspirational, intelligent woman. I used her as my sounding board.

I wanted each person I chose to have a personal connection to me. For example, my starter was T.E. Lawrence, who’s known as Lawrence of Arabia.  He was a Welsh man. But he was integral in the emancipation of the Arab people from Ottoman rule. He spent a lot of time in Jordan, where my family are from. So for me there was this really close connection.

For my fish course I did Hedd Wyn. He’s not really well known in England because he’s a Welsh language poet and he wrote a lot about his time in Snowdonia. He was a lifelong pacifist who was forced to join the first world war. As someone who is quite anti war myself, I really appreciated this poetic soul who wrote about the beauty of his homeland.

What was it like working under the cameras and with the crew at Great British Menu?

It’s hard.  I tend to waffle on to myself when I cook. They said Ayesha you don’t need to keep talking when you’re doing stuff.

They assign you a cameraman for the week. It was like having my own personal cheerleader. When I got flustered, he was always there saying, “Come on, you got it”. The crew were so kind, so supportive, they were just incredible.

I think the more stressful bit is being in an unfamiliar kitchen. They have got all the top of the range stuff. I re-mortaged my flat to buy my restaurant. So I don’t have a top of the range Rationale. Then in the Great British Menu kitchen, suddenly I’m faced with The Starship Enterprise instead!

Great British Menu is very well known for its props, did you embrace them on the show? 

I loved it. I love theatre. Some of the most memorable dishes on Great British Menu had the most amazing props.  You don’t want to be all props and style over substance.  I would say my main is the one where I was so proud of the props when I was preparing for the show.  I worked with artists and producers who are within three miles of my restaurant. I love being able to put things back into the local economy.

Which chef that you have worked with has given you the most inspiration?

I would say in my career, I have been incredibly fortunate enough to have had some incredible female head chefs as role models.  Chefs like Helen Graham, & Juliette O’Sullivan (The Good Egg Margate) . These amazing, strong women have been astoundingly inspirational for me, especially with International Women’s Day coming up and recent industry challenges putting equality in the public eye. I’m so grateful to have had these women who have made a safe, open and welcome space for other women in kitchens. I’m eternally grateful to them.

In terms of other inspirations, Stephen Stevens at Sosban and The Old Butchers is a genius. He’s one of the most astounding chefs I’ve ever met. Then there’s my grandmother. She’s not a chef, but she was one of the most incredible cooks ever. It’s not just chefs who inspire me. It’s a street food stand. It’s the lunch my friends prepared for me. I take inspiration from everything. I’ve been lucky to have had some amazing influences in my career.

If you were marooned on a desert island, what was the one type of dish you could happily live on?

Labneh. I  could eat it all day. I love it. I think we should be eating more of it. Just give me a big mountain of labneh, good olive oil, and warm pitta bread and I am the happiest of bunnies. You know, it’s just strained yogurt, but different yogurts will bring different flavours. I use one in my restaurant from a local farmer, and it tastes of hay and grass. It brings back childhood memories too. When you were poorly, you were served labneh and rice. For something that’s so simple and plain, I’m just straight up obsessed with it.

Finally, what do you know now that you wish you could have told your younger self when you were starting out?

Have faith, keep going and smile. Ignore the people who are making you doubt yourself. You’re going to come across some horrible people who will tell you that you are not good enough. But you’ll never be good enough. There was a chef who told me I would never make it off of the salad section. Well, look at me now.

You may think people are being harsh, but everyone has something you can learn from. Through listening you can learn so much from everybody. Also, stand up, listen, open your ears, but don’t let people walk all over you.  I did when I was younger, but I wouldn’t let that happen again.

But ultimately have faith in yourself, because there have been a lot of times in my career where I didn’t believe in myself and I didn’t think I could do it. Keep saying to yourself, it will be okay.

Ayesha will be appearing on Great British Menu from Tuesday 25th February 2025 representing Wales.  Look out for more in our series of interviews with the great women chefs on Great British Menu 2025 – this page will be regularly updated.