Maria Elia

MARIA ELIA was born into the restaurant business, growing up in the kitchen of her Greek Cypriot father's restaurant in Richmond, London, where even at a really young age she knew she wanted to be a chef herself. After an apprenticeship at Café Royal's Grill Room, Maria's love of cooking has taken her around the world. She has worked in Italy, America, and Australia, spent time cooking at El Bulli and Arzak restaurants in Spain and at The Oriental Cooking School in Bangkok. The regional flavors of all these far-flung places feature in Maria's recipes with standout originality and earned her many fans during her 10-year tenure as head chef at the Delfina Studio Café. Now a regular on BBC's Ready Steady Cook, Maria Elia was voted one of the Top 10 Female Chefs to watch by the Independent and was just profiled in Time Out's London's Rising Talent issue.