The big interview
Chef and Great British Menu host Andi Oliver opens up to Good Housekeeping about the challenges and rewards of motherhood, how therapy changed her life and the joy she feels from ageing
Andi Oliver brings a burst of energy with her wherever she goes. As she strikes each pose on the GH cover shoot, she fills the room with the sound of her booming laughter.
Her daughter, Miquita, who lives nearby and has popped in, cheers her mum on from the sidelines, and the bond between them is clear to see.
The 60-year-old chef and restaurateur rose to fame in the early 1980s, fronting the band Rip Rig + Panic, members of which included her brother, Sean, and friend, vocalist Neneh Cherry. But it was food that remained Andi’s greatest passion and, despite having no formal training, she ran several successful restaurants, including The Moveable Feast, The Jackdaw And Star, and Andi’s.
In 2017, she became a judge on the BBC’s Great British Menu, before taking over as presenter in 2020, and she’s about to return to our screens to host the 19th series.
Andi also runs a Caribbean-inspired pop-up restaurant, Wadadli Kitchen in London, with her partner of nearly three decades, Garfield Hackett, and she and Miquita host a podcast called Stirring It Up With Andi & Miquita Oliver.
Here, Andi shares how she’s created a life full of love, food and joy…
We can’t wait for the new series of Great British Menu. What can we expect?
It’s going to be spectacular. We’re at a very interesting time in the restaurant industry, because it used to be that chefs felt they had to leave where they grew up and come to London to find success; that there was only one route to culinary excellence. People don’t feel they have to do that any more. Food has been a white, male-led industry for decades, but each year we find more and more women and people from different ethnicities and culturally diverse backgrounds. And this year, we’ve done that again. I’m really excited to be part of the change happening before my eyes.
Do you think TV fame came at the right time for you?
Absolutely. By the time people were stopping me in the street, I was ready for it. I don’t know if I could have dealt with it when I was younger. I watched my best friend, Nana [Neneh Cherry], go through it, and it was pretty hard. She was very young and it happened really quickly. She dealt with it in the most regal, brilliant manner, but it was exhausting emotionally. At one point, she got quite ill. Fame is very hard for young people, and to develop emotionally is hard. By the time it happened to me, I was kind of cooked already! But fame has never been a plan of mine. I really don’t care about being fam
