Food Radio - Allegra McEvedy at the Great British Cheese Festival

Allegra McEvedy

Allegra McEvedy is a chef, broadcaster and writer. She is a founding partner of Leon, the healthy fast-food restaurant group that won Best New Restaurant in the 2005 Observer food awards.

Allegra’s catering career has included stints at some of London’s most glamorous and acclaimed restaurants including Green's, The Belvedere, The Groucho Club, The River Café and The Cow where she was head chef at the age of just 24. She gained a special visa to the US as 'an alien with extraordinary ability in the culinary arts' where she worked at Robert de Niro's New York restaurant Tribeca Grill and Rubicon in San Francisco. She also cooked personally for President Clinton at a Democratic party fundraiser.

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Allegra McEvedy

Allegra McEvedy at the Great British Cheese Festival

Sunday, 21 October 2007

The Great British Cheese Festival has been described as having "the style of a Royal picnic and the atmosphere of a famer’s market with attitude” and “The Glastonbury of Food”. With no less than 460 cow, sheep, goat and buffalo cheeses to taste and buy in Britain’s biggest cheese market, and over 100 British & Irish cheesemakers to meet, this event is one of the most prestigious in the food calendar.

Allegra's guests are:

Baron Robert Pouget of the Oxford Cheese Company. Born in France, Robert describes himself as a cheese producer and affineur, Oxford Blue and Oxford Isis being examples of his skill in this art of maturing cheese. His views on 'foodie talk', celebrity chefs and rising prices in the dairy industry are uncompromising and sometimes controversial and his insights into cheese production in both France and England add to the international flavour of the conversation.

Mo Frechette is a Partner of Zingerman's of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Delicatessen, creamery, caterers, coffee company and more, Zingerman's is considered an institution and one of America's best-known delis. Mo was visiting the Festival as part of a cheese-sourcing tour of Europe and the UK. In a country with little tradition of cheese making, Zingerman's is something of a champion of local artisanal producers as well as importing cheeses from further afield.

Jeremy Bowen, Sales Manager of Paxton and Whitfield, cheesemongers since 1797. A highly respected institution, Paxton and Whitfield are in a position to influence the development of new cheeses in this country. Jeremy is passionate about his subject and discusses trends in British cheesemaking against the background of rising milk prices and a general move towards buying local produce. He is greatly encouraged by the number of young cheesemakers coming into the fore.