Allegra is the culinary brains behind the healthy fast food chain, Leon, which first opened its doors in Carnaby Street in July, 2004

Chef, writer and broadcaster Allegra McEvedy MBE has been described by The Independent as “a caterer with a conscience”. She has been cooking professionally for 20 years, working her way through a clutch of London’s best restaurants as well as an eighteen month spell in the States. During these times, she developed the philosophy that she continues to live and work by: that there are more ways for a chef to make a difference than by winning Michelin stars, and good food should be available to everybody.

In 1991, Allegra completed her classical French training at the Cordon Bleu in London. She also obtained the Higher Certificate from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

She then went on to work at Green’s, The Belvedere in Holland Park, Alfred’s, The Groucho Club and The River Café. She got her first Head Chef position at Tom Conran’s The Cow, in Notting Hill, at the age of 24.

During a spell in the USA, facilitated by being awarded a special visa as ‘an alien with extraordinary ability in the culinary arts’, Allegra worked at Rubicon and Jardinière in San Francisco, and ran the kitchen at Robert De Niro’s New York restaurant Tribeca Grill, regularly doing 500 covers a night. Whilst in New York, she catered for an exclusive Democratic Party fundraiser, which involved personally cooking for President Clinton and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In 2003, Allegra co-founded LEON, the award-winning, healthy, fast-food restaurant group, which opened its first outlet in Carnaby Street in 2004. Six months after opening, LEON was named the “Best New Restaurant in Great Britain” at the Observer Food Monthly Awards (by a judging panel that included Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay, Nigel Slater, Ruth Rogers and Jay Rayner). In 2008 LEON won the Palme d’Or for the Best Restaurant Concept in Europe.

LEON currently has 12 restaurants serving over 100, 000 people a week.

Allegra gave up her role at LEON in early 2009 to focus on writing and broadcasting, though she remains a shareholder in the business.

Allegra was Chef in Residence at The Guardian for 3 years until 2009, as well as hosting a quarterly “cookalong”, the internet’s first live, interactive and illustrated cooking class. Previously she has had columns in ES (Evening Standard magazine) and Elle as well as contributing frequently to food and travel magazines.

Over the summer of 2009, Allegra co-presented Economy Gastronomy, a six-part BBC prime-time series about planning ahead, shopping well, spending less and using ingredients wisely.

Allegra has worked extensively with Good Food Channel, and has just finished filming ‘Matt and Allegra’s Big Farm’, co-presenting with Matt Dawson. The series starts on 23 October 2011.

She is a regular on the radio, including as guest presenter for R4’s Loose Ends, as well as the Today program, and she does a seasonal food slot on Robert Elms show for BBC London.

She also the author of four books:

The Good Cook (Hodder & Stoughton 2000);

Allegra McEvedy’s Colour Cookbook (Kyle Cathie 2006, winner in the Chefs and Restaurants category of the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Cookbook Awards);

LEON: Ingredients & Recipes (Conran Octopus 2008, currently in its fourth print run);

Economy Gastronomy (Michael Joseph 2009, the bestselling tie-in book to the BBC TV series, which has sold 100, 000 copies).

Her fifth book, ‘Bought, Borrowed & Stolen: Recipes and Knives from a Travelling Chef’ has just been published by Conran Octopus (2011) and slices together 20 years of recipes from the food diaries that she’s kept on her extensive travels with her obsession for knives that she’s brought back from all over the world.

Allegra is a Fellow of the RSA (The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), a Member of Guild of Food Writers, Spokesperson for The Fairtrade Foundation, and on the Advisory Board for Good Catch Sustainable Fish Forum. She is a patron of The Food Chain (a charity that delivers hot meals to people with HIV and AIDS), as well as the Notting Hill Farmers’ Market and the London Gay Symphony Orchestra.

In 2008, Allegra was awarded an MBE for services to the hospitality industry, with the citation of promoting healthier eating and ethical sourcing in the UK.