Prue Leith tipped to take over from Mary Berry as The Great British Bake Off judge

prue leith,

Highly respected restauranteur and chef Prue Leith is rumoured to be taking over from Mary Berry when Bake Off premieres on Channel 4

Television cook Prue Leith is set to replace Mary Berry as a judge on The Great British Bake Off, according to reports.

The former Great British Menu judge will appear alongside Paul Hollywood when the hit show moves to Channel 4 later this year, according to The Sun.

Prue, 76, first started as a cook at a firm of solicitors, but has gone on to become one of Britain’s best loved restaurateurs and food writers.

After training at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in London she worked as a caterer before opening her restaurant Leith’s in west London in 1969.

Celebrity chef Prue Leith (right) with catering staff from Howden School, East Yorkshire, during a visit to meet catering staff and pupils at the school.

(Anna Gowthorpe/PA)

 

In 1974 she founded her own cookery school, Leith’s School of Food and Wine, which trains professional chefs and amateur cooks.

Famous alumni of the school include Lorraine Pascale, Gizzi Erskine and Matt Tebbutt, as well as Michelin-starred chefs such as Joe Mercer Nairne and Matt Christmas.

The South African-born cook has written a dozen cookbooks, most famously Leith’s Cookery Bible, which was penned as a textbook for her school and is frequently updated.

Cook, writer and broadcaster Prue Leith after she become a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) from the Princess Royal during the investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle.

(Steve Parsons/PA)

 

She sold the school in the early 1990s before setting up a college in South Africa and has carved out a career as a cooking columnist and novelist, as well as a television personality.

Prue judged the BBC cookery show The Great British Menu for 11 years before stepping down at the end of last year, shortly after her old friend Mary Berry announced she would not follow the Great British Bake Off to Channel 4.

She is still as passionate about food as she ever was, writing on her website: “I love cooking, the doing of it.

“And even though I’ve given up writing cookbooks in order to conserve my writing energies for novels, I still like experimenting and trying stuff and eating things I’ve never eaten before.

“And of course I’m seriously greedy. I will go to the grave wishing I was a stone lighter (right now I wish I was a stone and a half lighter).

“But I simply refuse to eat salad without dressing, or strawberries without cream, or boiled eggs without toast soldiers.”

Prue is a former chair of the Children’s Food Trust, which campaigns to encourage the nation’s children to eat more healthily, and was awarded an OBE in 1989 and a CBE in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

 

PA Media is the national news agency for the UK and Ireland. With unrivalled access to the performers, productions and celebrities on both sides of the Atlantic, PA Media stories provide an irresistible glimpse into showbiz news. Bringing you all of entertainment's big moments. From daily soaps to film productions, we cover the shows that audiences want to know about with our previews, news and interviews.