Join us for our Open Evening at Leiths on Thursday 5th February 2026, 6:30–8:30pm, and discover how the Culinary Diploma can launch your career in food.
Join us for our Open Evening at Leiths on Thursday 5th February 2026, 6:30–8:30pm, and discover how the Culinary Diploma can launch your career in food.
Ukrainian chef and Diploma graduate Olia Hercules launched her food writing career not long after graduating from Leiths.
In 2014, Russia’s invasion of Crimea inspired her to write about the richly diverse growing, cooking and eating culture of her homeland in her award-winning first cookbook Mamushka.
She has since written three more cookbooks, but her career took on a new purpose when Russia launched their full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In response, Olia and Alissa Timoshkina set up Cook for Ukraine, a fundraiser which has so far raised over one million pounds for the Ukrainian war effort.
In Strong Roots, Olia explores that deep held Ukrainian love of the land and the powerful resilience displayed throughout generations of her family who have been subjected to war and exile.
So far, it has been an oral tradition by which these stories have been preserved. The details of each story have been handed down and argued over around a table groaning with Ukrainian food.
We visited her in her home kitchen to cook, talk about writing down those stories and eat together.
