Thomasina learned to cook from her mother, from the basics of a béchamel sauce, and how to sweat onions until soft and sweet when she was just six. After spending most of her twenties trying to find a career, from advertising to journalism to digital consultancy, she met Clarissa Dickson Wright who told her to follow her passion and ended up at Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland.

She took a trip back to Mexico a few years later, the first time she had been back since her teens, to open a cocktail bar, and ended up spending her time travelling around the country exploring the incredible diversity of its ingredients and the astounding quality of the food.

Back in the UK, with no idea what to do next, she went on MasterChef, which led to a stint at Petersham Nurseries under Skye Gyngell. A year later she met her business partner and decided to open Wahaca, a restaurant inspired by the street food and markets of Mexico with a big focus on sustainability.

She has since written several cookbooks, and continues to advocate for access to good, local ingredients, encouraging a more colourful, vegetable-focused and conscious attitude to food in all her writing and work. Her latest cookbook, Meat-Free Mexican, published in May 2022, does just that.

@thomasinamiers
www.thomasinamiers.com