Category: Student Stories

Jodienne Ball is the founder of Bake Yard, a social enterprise in south east London, established to meet the ‘kneads’ of young people through cooking, baking, and community building. Last year, she was one of the first cohort of Black hospitality workers to be awared a study scholarship on the Ben’s Original™ Seat at the Table™ programme in partnership with Be Inclusive Hospitality.

Leiths graduate Ayesha Kalaji is executive chef and co-founder of Queen of Cups, a 17th Century coaching inn turned modern Middle Eastern restaurant in Glastonbury. Ayesha draws influences from her Jordanian roots to create food that saw Queen of Cups awarded a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide within one year of opening.

Leiths Diploma graduate Helena Busiakiewicz is food content creator for BBC Good Food, an action-packed role that involves recipe development and content creation for BBC Good Food’s website, TikTok, Instagram, print magazine, and sister title Olive.

Hilary Armstrong catches up with Dominque Woolf, Leiths Essentials alumni, on winning the show, working with Jamie Oliver and her new cookbook.

Leiths Diploma Graduates Lilli Taviner and Ellie Seaton both landed jobs on the pastry team at The River Café in London shortly after graduating in 2021. Here they tell us all about working in the legendary restaurant.

Caitlin Walsh knew early on that she wanted to be a chef. She chose not to go to university after A Levels in order to enrol at Leiths, where she was awarded Student of the Year in 2018. Now a chef de partie in pastry at Harrods, Caitlin was this year crowned Royal Academy of Culinary Arts’ Young Pastry Chef of the Year.

After winning Best Pitch on our How to Start Up a Successful Business course, Tom Geoffrey went on to become the chef and founder of Barang Street Kitchen, a Cambodian street food concept and pop-up. Tom tells us about his love for Cambodian food, his plans for Barang, and how attending Leiths’ food business course helped him achieve his dreams.

Former Leiths student Maria Bradford was born and raised in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in West Africa. She now lives in Kent, where she runs Shwen Shwen (meaning ‘fancy’ in her native Krio), a high-end catering company, supper club, and online stores specialising in Sierra Leonean cuisine.