The Caribbean chef and Great British Menu host is never happier than when she’s cooking, whether that’s at home or while exploring charity projects in Malawi, writes Emma Higginbotham

“I don't watch myself on television,” says Andi Oliver. “I’m sick of the sound of my own voice. I'm like, "Oh my God, is she wanging on again?"

Sitting in the garden of the east London home she shares with her partner Garfield, her mum and her elderly dog, the exuberant chef and Great British Menu host is ‘wanging on’ – or to my ears, chatting joyfully – about food, life, and a recent visit to Malawi. She was there to see how WaterAid and the Wimbledon Foundation are bringing fresh water to those who need it most, and it didn’t take Andi long to get behind the stoves.

“Cooking makes me feel grounded,” explains the 63-year-old. “I bought what I could from the market, and I was rushing around, making this crazy seasoned rice with banana fritters. Everyone was like, ‘What is this woman doing?!’" But this, she says, is how she shows love, “and it felt like I really landed in the village. I wasn’t just on the outside, looking in.”

Feeling like an outsider was part of everyday life for young Andi, the only black girl at her school in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Racist taunts made life miserable, but cooking bought her comfort. Aged 10, with both parents working, she’d make tea for herself and her older brother, Sean. At first it was basics like omelettes and chips, then came creamy cauliflower cheeses and crunchy apple turnovers. By 11, she’d mastered the Sunday roast. “My mum recently told me it's because she hated doing it, so she got me to do it instead! But I loved it. I realised that you could change somebody's day by putting something lovely on the table.”

Her roasts were a mash-up of British and Caribbean flavours – the chicken rubbed with spices, the roast potatoes alongside rice and peas. “A hodgepodge, because that's what I am,” she shrugs. “While I have Antiguan heritage, I'm completely, inescapably British.”

At 17, Andi moved to London, joining Sean in post-punk band Rip Rig + Panic. She and fellow singer (and fellow avid cook) Neneh Cherry would throw parties, pooling what little cash they had to dish up chicken, pickled fish and potato salads. But when Sean tragically died of sickle cell anaemia aged 27, Andi’s relationship with food took a dark turn. Overwhelmed by grief, she started eating compulsively. “I couldn't stop. I was eating in the middle of the night, in the dark, crying. Food became frightening; the thing that had always given me joy, my language of love, had turned on me.” Three months of intensive therapy “gave me my life back. And gave me food back.”

Throughout her career, Andi has cooked at pop-ups and supper clubs, and had restaurants in two pubs, latterly the The Jackdaw & Star in Homerton, where people flocked to her Caribbean feasts. She sporadically presented radio and TV shows too, but everything changed after her first appearance on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, cooking roast pork with a torched chilli crackling. “I got back to the pub that afternoon and it was rammed,” she recalls. “That just catapulted me into a different arena.” Next came Andi's in Stoke Newington, “and then Great British Menu happened, and it all became too much.” Unable to commit to both, she reluctantly closed the restaurant.

Andi was a judge on the hit show for four years before they asked her to become a presenter in 2020. “I said no. I felt it was important for somebody who looks like me to keep having a voice of authority. So they changed the role so that I still had an active part in the adjudication, and I said yes, and I'm so happy that I did. I love working with the chefs during the week, and my own cooking has vastly expanded, because I’m like ‘Wow, can I have the recipe for that?!’”

Away from the show, Andi often collaborates with her presenter daughter Miquita – including the food-based podcast Stirring It Up, and on shows such as BBC Two’s The Caribbean with Andi and Miquita – and works with Dishpatch, the Waitrose-owned home delivery company, to create flavour-packed menus such as Antiguan roast chicken, and slow-cooked mutton with dark chocolate, cardamom, chilli & treacle. Then there was that trip to Malawi, to see the Wimbledon Foundation and WaterAid projects, which left her “absolutely bowled over. When you understand the power that water has on the community, on an individual's life, it's really breathtaking.”

Andi visited a health centre where, thanks to a newly-drilled borehole, vulnerable new mums no longer have to take a precarious walk down a steep hillside with their babies to wash. In another village she met Dina, who trudges up and down a mountain eight times a day to fetch water. “She starts at two in the morning, so she hasn't really had a proper night's sleep since she was about nine. Within the next month they’re going to have water there, and Dina says she’s going to open a carpentry shop!

“Any time you meet someone exceptional like that, it makes you realise how much we have when so many people have so little,” she adds. “WaterAid’s work is truly vital, because everybody deserves to hope, and everybody deserves to live their best life.”

Visit wateraid.org/champions, and find Andi’s menus at dishpatch.co.uk.

KITCHEN GRILL

Top summer ingredient?

All the beautiful fresh herbs. You can uplift anything with a bit of tarragon, dill or chervil.

Best thing you've eaten lately?

I’ve been making a barbecue glaze with chocolate rum. It’s probably arrogant to say my own food, but it’s brilliant!

Go-to dip?

Roast garlic, yogurt, salt and a bit of honey.

Guilty pleasure?

I'm addicted to a vegan caramelised white chocolate called Ombar. I eat it every single day.

Bingeable cooking show?

I like Australian MasterChef because there's loads culturally different ingredients, like Moreton Bay bugs.

Best crisp flavour?

Walkers cheese & onion, hands down, no argument.

Store cupboard staple?

I make my own all-purpose seasoning with onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne and black pepper.

Sundowner?

Gin & tonic, not too much ice, no fruit. Well, maybe cucumber – I’m on the fence.

Tastes like home?

My mum's banana pancakes.

Well-thumbed cookbook?

Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food, and The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis.

Go-to kitchen gadget?

I have been known to travel with my hand blender.

An edited version of this interview appeared in Your Week In Food in July 2026 © Waitrose