25/01/2025

Interview with Livia Alarcon representing North West on Great British Menu 2025 – Women In the Food Industry

Great British Menu (GBM) returns to our screens on January 28th 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 Livia Alarcon Head Chef & owner of La Bistroteca, in Liverpool.

Great British Menu 2025 Livia Alarcon

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

The way into the food world was from school. I went to a school that specialized in design. You could do cooking, you could do woodwork, you could also do textiles.  But I didn’t really enjoy too many of the lessons and I feel as though I’m not really the kind of average person that enjoys sitting in a classroom listening and following textbooks.

But I really wanted to do cooking because my family are really into cooking. My granddad cooks twice a week for the family. It was quite a big thing within my upbringing. Everyone got around the table. We all enjoyed it and it was just nice. Cooking was probably the only subject out of everything that I did that I was really interested in.

As the time went on and as I continued doing food technology, it just clicked and I thought, “You know what, this is what I’m going to go and do”. So after school I didn’t do A levels, I went straight to Liverpool Community College. They’ve got a whole culinary department with their own restaurants. I studied three years of professional cookery and hospitality.

I then became head chef  local restaurant ‘Maray’ when I was 21. Then when I was  26 I opened up my own restaurant in Liverpool, La Bistroteca.

Great British Menu 2025 North West Chefs and Andi Oliver

How did you get onto Great British Menu this year?

Great British Menu approached me quite a few years ago. It was when I was at my last head chef role at Queen’s Wine Bar and Bistro. Things had  really taken off. It was only my second time as a head chef and I felt that with everything that was required of me it would have been really hard to manage and fit into the working week. So unfortunately, although I got through the first stage I just felt like I couldn’t deliver and I wanted to put my heart and soul into this.

But the team got back in touch again last year, just out of the blue. My restaurant is in the Baltic Market. But I also had a summer residency at the time in another business. It’s a gin garden that does food. However, I managed to work it out with both businesses on the go.

How did you prepare for the Great Britons theme?

It was really quite daunting and difficult at the beginning, but then I just had one day where I sat down and it just all come together. I then spent time buying all my ingredients, testing at home, asking my partner to taste, taking pictures and making notes. It was intense.

This is your first time on Great British Menu, how did you find it working in the studio kitchen and under the eye of the cameras?

I have worked on a TV show before, so in fact, I did Jason Atherton’s  ‘The Chefs’ Brigade’. That showed me what it was like to talk and cook and have all of that captured on TV.  I felt a little bit more sure of myself as I felt I had something to base it on. But then once you’re there, I was thinking  “Oh, my goodness, this is on a whole new level.”

Great British Menu 2025 Livia Alarcon

Which was the hardest course to prepare for when you were researching for GBM’s Great Britons theme?

The hardest course was the starter. With the dish that I chose, trying to model that around the vegan aspect, whereby you can’t use your normal ingredients wasn’t easy. When it’s vegetables alone, you’ve really got to make them shine.

Great British Menu 2025 North West Chefs

Did you embrace the props on the show?

My grandparents absolutely love Great British Menu and watch it all the time. So speaking to them and obviously myself watching it quite a lot. I knew that although it seems prop heavy, it’s also as much about cooking. It’s got to be theatrical. For me that was a challenge, as it’s not my everyday style of cooking. It was tough, but I gave it my best shot.

Great British Menu 2025 North West Chefs

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

It’s a bit of a Liverpool thing. It just feels like us Scousers, us Liverpudlians, we seem to love Asian cooking. For me it’s Cantonese roast meats, I love them. That is proper comfort food for me.

Livia Alarcon at her restaurant La Bistroteca

If I’m having an office based day and I need to go and get some lunch that is my go-to. If I’ve had a really long week in the kitchen, at end of the week, that’s my pick me up.  I reckon that I could eat it on a weekly basis or even twice a week, So yes on a desert island, I think I could probably live on it.

Liva Alarcon at La Bistroteca Liverpool

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

I still have to remind myself now that the career of a chef isn’t a race. I was given quite a big role at a young age and I think that warped my perception. You have one bit of success and then you want to catapult to maximum success. But I think as time’s gone on, I look back and although it’s a race, it’s not in a sprint way. It’s not to be rushed. It’s to be nurtured. There’s still so many scenarios and possible outcomes and so much more learning to be done.

The head chef I was at 21, to the head chef I am now are miles apart. They’re completely different people and I am in such a better position now than I was then.

Livia will be appearing on Great British Menu from Tuesday 28th January 2025 representing the North West.  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.

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