Thomasina Jean "Tommi" Miers,
OBE (born February 1976) is an English cook, writer and television presenter. She is the co-founder of the
Wahaca
Wahaca (phonetic spelling of the Mexican State of Oaxaca) is a UK restaurant group selling Mexican-style street food, co-founded by Thomasina Miers, with 13 branches in the United Kingdom.
History
Miers opened the first branch in the West End of ...
chain of Mexican street food restaurants.
Early life
Thomasina Jean "Tommi" Miers was born in February 1976
in
Cheltenham, the daughter of (Michael) Probyn Miers, a joiner and furniture maker, formerly a management consultant and Niki Miers, of
Guiting Power
Guiting Power is a village and civil parish in the Cotswolds, in Gloucestershire, England. The population of the parish at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 296.
Guiting Power stands on the slopes of a small valley formed by a trib ...
,
Cheltenham.
She grew up in "a big rambling house" at
Acton, West London.
The Miers family, landed gentry originally of
Aldingham
Aldingham is a village and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it is situated on the east coast of the Furness peninsula, facing into Morecambe Bay, and is about east of Barrow-in-Furne ...
,
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...
(then in
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
), owned the Ynyspenllwch estate in
Glamorganshire
, HQ = Cardiff
, Government = Glamorgan County Council (1889–1974)
, Origin=
, Code = GLA
, CodeName = Chapman code
, Replace =
* West Glamorgan
* Mid Glamorgan
* South Glamorgan
, Motto ...
until the time of her grandfather, Cmdr Richard Eustace Probyn Miers,
RN. Miers has a twin brother, Dighton, and a sister, Talulah.
She studied at
St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School is an independent day school for girls, aged 11 to 18, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.
History
St Paul's Girls' School was founded by the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1904, using part o ...
, Edinburgh University (Modern Languages) and
Ballymaloe Cookery School and worked as a freelance cook and writer, with influences from time spent in Mexico.
Career
In 2005, Miers won the BBC TV cookery competition ''
MasterChef
''MasterChef'' is a competitive cooking show television format created by Franc Roddam, which originated with the UK version in July 1990. The format was revived and updated for the BBC in February 2005 by executive producers Roddam and John ...
'', "impressing judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with her bold and, at times, eccentric cooking style".
She has made two series of cookery programmes for
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
with co-presenter
Guy Grieve: ''Wild Gourmets'' in 2007 and ''A Cook's Tour of Spain'' in 2008. In 2011, she presented ''Mexican Food Made Simple'' for
Channel 5.
She is co-editor with Annabel Buckingham of the cookbook ''Soup Kitchen'' (with an introduction by
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hugh Christopher Edmund Fearnley-Whittingstall (born 14 January 1965) is an English celebrity chef, television personality, journalist, food writer, and campaigner on food and environmental issues.
Fearnley-Whittingstall hosted the ''River C ...
). She has also written ''Cook: Smart Seasonal Recipes for Hungry People'', ''The Wild Gourmets: Adventures in Food and Freedom'', with Guy Grieve, and ''Mexican Food Made Simple''.
Miers co-founded
Wahaca
Wahaca (phonetic spelling of the Mexican State of Oaxaca) is a UK restaurant group selling Mexican-style street food, co-founded by Thomasina Miers, with 13 branches in the United Kingdom.
History
Miers opened the first branch in the West End of ...
, which became a chain of Mexican "street food" restaurants, alongside Mark Selby in 2006. The company opened its first restaurant in London's
Covent Garden in August 2007 and in October 2008 a second opened at
Westfield London
Westfield London is a large shopping centre in White City, west London, England, developed by the Westfield Group at a cost of £1.6bn,
on a brownfield site formerly the home of the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. The site is bounded by the W ...
. Wahaca launched their first mobile kitchen in 2011, selling Mexican street food on the streets of London. By the end of 2017 Wahaca had 25 branches, and in January 2021 there were 13.
Personal life
Miers is married to Mark Williams, a fund manager at
Liontrust Asset Management and they have three daughters.
In January 2019, Miers was made an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the food industry; she received the honour from the
Duke of Cambridge
Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...
later in the year at an
investiture
Investiture (from the Latin preposition ''in'' and verb ''vestire'', "dress" from ''vestis'' "robe") is a formal installation or ceremony that a person undergoes, often related to membership in Christian religious institutes as well as Christian k ...
ceremony at
Buckingham Palace.
Books
* ''The Wild Gourmets: Adventures in Food and Freedom'' (3 September 2007) co-author Guy Grieve
* ''Wahaca – Mexican Food Made Simple'' (4 March 2010)
* ''Wahaca – Mexican Food at Home'' (21 June 2012)
* ''Chilli Notes'' (8 May 2014)
* ''Cantina: Recipes from a Mexican Kitchen'' (1 November 2014)
* ''Home Cook'' (2 March 2017)
References
External links
*
Miers' cookery articles in ''The Guardian''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miers, Thomasina
1976 births
British cookbook writers
English businesspeople
English food writers
English restaurateurs
Women restaurateurs
English television chefs
Living people
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at St Paul's Girls' School
People from Cheltenham
Women cookbook writers
Reality cooking competition winners
British gastronomes