The Graduate: Megan Coker

Megan Coker’s career in food is built on a simple conviction: that good cooking comes from proper training from seasoned teachers, quality ingredients and learning by doing. 

Learning the right way

She arrived on the Leiths Culinary Diploma in 2014 as a twenty-four-year-old career changer, having spent six months working in the café at Kensington Palace to test whether she actually wanted to pursue food professionally. She did, but only if she could ‘do it the right way.’ At Leiths, Megan found a cohort of similarly driven career changers and threw herself into as much work experience as possible alongside her studies, discovering an ambition for Michelin-starred cooking. 

She accepted a graduate job at Le Coq before a stint in Delhi opening a café for the British Council. On returning to London, a demanding year at Jason Atherton’s restaurant Social Eating House followed running hot starters and bar service, tempura batter made to order, foie gras cooked on the fly.  

The St John years

Then came Megan’s education at London institution St John. Her trial alone gave a flavour of the four years she would end up spending there: she had to butcher ten rabbits and a whole venison loin. During her time there, Megan rose from CDP to Senior Sous and learned the discipline and precision of doing things properly. ‘Leiths gave me the starters,’ she says. ‘I knew the anatomy of an animal. But St John taught me how to do it under pressure, with speed.’ 

St John’s influence runs deeper than technique. The 48-hour weeks, the staff meals, the proper training time – this, Megan observed, was how a kitchen should run.  

‘I think that’s why the restaurant industry is so successful now – because of St John. It bred brilliant chefs who are now running brilliant restaurants in London.’ 

Indeed, Megan’s CDPs have gone on to open Cafe Cecilia and Willy’s Pies and one even became head chef at zero-waste restaurant Silo.  

Megan worked for a charity that taught homeless people how to cook and they would then cook for the homeless too. But during Covid, when many homeless people were put into hotels, then funding was reallocated.  

Returning to teach at Leiths

It was then she was offered a teaching position at Leiths, which felt like a natural coming together of all her experience so far. ‘Working at St John makes you a really good teacher,’ she explains. She particularly loved doing cookery and butchery demonstrations at Leiths: ‘they’re like a restaurant service, with the pressure of being on time and making it perfect, with the added bit of explaining while you’re doing it.’  

Training the next generation

She’s now head chef at Dinner Ladies, bringing the same standards to high-end catering. Her approach to ingredients is exacting: Shrub for vegetables, Billfields and Swaledale for meat.  

‘I use the same as Leiths to be honest. Leiths use very good suppliers. As much as I can I get British in everything.’ Many of her team are Leiths graduates, some her former students. ‘I know how they’ve been trained. They come in with the right attitude. And you know they love food. And that’s half the battle.’  

Her long-term ambition is to help establish Dinner Ladies’ planned training academy, bringing her experience full circle. From student to chef to teacher to mentor – each stage reinforcing the same belief that excellence in cooking comes from proper training and proper ingredients.