Thomasina (Tommi) Miers is a London-based cook-er, recipe writer, restaurateur and lover of food. She won Masterchef in 2005 and opened Wahaca in 2007, a truly delicious group of Mexican restaurants that have won numerous awards for their deliciousness, flare and exceedingly high number of vegetarian dishes they serve up alongside slow-cooked beef tacos, free-range pork pibil and the most excellent Buttermilk chicken tacos around. Oh, and they do some excellent beans. She was awarded an OBE in 2017, the same year she co-founded Chefs in Schools, a charity with BIG plans to feed [all] British kids great tasting real food.
Tommi learnt to cook at her mother’s side. From learning how to make a classic béchamel, coaxing the most out of onions or learning how to create feasts from ingredients hiding at the back of the fridge Tommi’ mother taught her the essentials of home cooking.
In those days, eating in season was the cheapest way to go, but it was also FUN. Globe artichokes with bowls of burnt butter and fresh bread for dunking; sizzling rashers of streaky bacon with juicy black pepper-brown sugar tomato salads for BLTs; for high days and holidays pints of prawns with Niki’s unrivalled homemade mayo.
At Ballymaloe Cookery School Tommi pulled a carrot out of the earth in their kitchen garden and had never taste anything so sweet, crunchy and carrot-like before. Today she is religious about going to her farmers’ market for ingredients that taste that good, and deeply irreligious about the amount of butter, olive oil and salt she uses to cook with them. (She also made cheese whilst she was out in Ireland, and sold sourdough at the market, but that is another story).
In 1994 she backpacked around Mexico. She never recovered. The fruit! The mangoes! The chillies! The limes. She was hooked from the word go, stunned by the country’s diversity of ingredients and the quality of its food. A decade later, after much more time in Mexico, she co-founded Wahaca. From the get go they recycled everything from their food waste to their bottles, put a delicious emphasis on cooking with vegetables and sourcing the best meat possible.
She has authored seven cookbooks, which you can read about in the Book section (go on, you know you want to….) and has had a weekend column in the Guardian Feast for over a decade.
CONTACT
Literary, collaboration and event enquiries: Sabhbh Curran
sabhbh.curran@curtisbrown.co.uk
For all other work including TV, radio and brand work please contact Vanessa at Curtis Brown: fogartyoffice@curtisbrown.co.uk
For all PR enquiries: ricky.davison@wahaca.co.uk
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