Olivia Potts

Olivia Potts is a former criminal barrister who retrained as a pastry chef. She co-hosts The Spectator’s Table Talk podcast and writes Spectator Life's The Vintage Chef column. A chef and food writer, she was winner of the Fortnum and Mason's debut food book award in 2020 for her memoir A Half Baked Idea.

Bring back the savoury!

1 April 2023 9:00 am

For a while now, we’ve been living through a renaissance of classical British cooking: a whole host of restaurants have…

Kugelhopf: a reassuring introduction to baking with yeast

18 March 2023 9:00 am

Yeast scares even some of the most proficient cooks. I know home cooks and professionals alike, food writers and fanatics,…

In defence of chicken tikka masala

4 March 2023 9:00 am

Chicken tikka masala has become something of a joke. When, in the late 2000s, it was topping lists of the…

Lamingtons

18 February 2023 9:00 am

Baby monitors

11 February 2023 9:00 am

The rise of the nursery spy app

A French revelation: how to make Breton galette complête

4 February 2023 9:00 am

When we were little we used to go on holiday to the same place in Brittany, a picturesque, quiet coastal…

Cosmo Landesman has no time for feel-good-grief memoirs

4 February 2023 9:00 am

The heartbroken father endlessly relives his son’s suicide, raking over every moment of Jack’s battle with depression and drug addiction

Sussex pond pudding: the perfect January pick-me-up

18 January 2023 10:00 pm

I always feel pulled toward citrus at the start of the year. Initially it was subconscious: I’d just find myself…

When street hawkers were a vital part of London life

14 January 2023 9:00 am

Unfairly dismissed as hucksters and fishwives, itinerant traders drove the capital’s expansion for centuries, says Charlie Taverner

In defence of duck à l’orange

7 January 2023 9:00 am

Duck à l’orange is so deliciously retro, it’s almost a cliché of kitsch. It seems hard to believe that there…

A last-minute alternative to Christmas cake: boiled fruit cake

17 December 2022 9:00 am

This time last year, I was disgustingly well organised. Awaiting the arrival of my first baby, with a late December…

You don’t need a fondue set to make fondue

10 December 2022 9:00 am

‘This dish is very you,’ my husband says, as I serve up 650g of melted, boozy cheese to the two…

Bread pudding is the perfect bridge from autumn to winter

26 November 2022 9:00 am

I am incapable of throwing anything away in the kitchen. In my fridge, there must be at least half a…

What it means to be a black African in London

5 November 2022 9:00 am

Since 2011, black Africans have been the dominant black group in the UK. Many of them are the descendants of…

The politics of butter

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Butter was not a major part of my childhood. In fact, I don’t remember it ever being in our fridge.…

Crunch time: how to make the perfect crisp sandwich

2 April 2022 9:00 am

A crisp sandwich is a private and personal endeavour. In my experience (and I have considerable experience in this particular…

The women who changed American cuisine forever

22 January 2022 9:00 am

What is ‘immigrant food’? In America, the answer can be just about anything — from burritos to bibimbap to burgers.…

Why I retrained as a butcher

9 October 2021 9:00 am

Why I retrained as a butcher

Will abusive chefs get their just deserts?

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Professional kitchens have always seemed like pressure cookers: hot, sweaty, stressful. The caricature of a head chef is angry, sweary,…

A lesson in understanding serial killers and child molesters

3 July 2021 9:00 am

True crime is having a moment: every day there’s a new documentary, book, podcast, or blockbuster film announced, detailing the…

What makes a pasty Cornish?

12 June 2021 9:00 am

This week, world leaders are doing what countless Brits do every summer: unpacking their bags in a charming corner of…

Comforting brown food from the Domestic Goddess

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Nigella Lawson is many things to many people: the perfect hostess, the TV star, the thinking man’s crumpet. To me…

While Dutch schools ban birthday cakes, the British pine for the next Bake Off

30 March 2019 9:00 am

The Way We Eat Now begins with a single bunch of grapes. The bunch is nothing special to the modern…

Tesco’s new Brexit supermarket doesn’t stack up

29 September 2018 9:00 am

Supermarkets have always moved with the times. After the recession we wanted affordable luxury, so we got M&S’s ‘Dine in…

Two new books by barristers chronicle the perilous state of our justice system

7 July 2018 9:00 am

‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’ says Dick the Butcher in Henry VI, Part II. Mostly,…