A former beauty and fashion journalist who found her calling as a chef is going to open her debut restaurant in London. Ravinder Boghal, 37, applied on Gordon Ramsey’s The F Word to find “Britain's new Fanny Cradock” only on the insistence of her friends who thought she could win, and win she did.
Now years after her win Ravinder is about to launch her first restaurant in London posh Marylebone. The restaurant Jikoni meaning “kitchen” is Swahili is a nod to her ancestry. East African by birth: her grandparents were from Punjab who went to Kenya by boat. Ravinder grew up in Nairobi until the age of seven before moving to Kent.
The team in the restaurant Jikoni is predominantly female. Ravinder has received enormous support for the restaurant especially from her fiancé Nadeem Lalani and Felicity Blunt, her literary agent for Ravinder’s debut cookbook, Cook in Boots. Blunt is coming to the restaurant launch with the actor Stanely Tucci, her husband.
Since the F Word Ravinder has presented various programmes including The Great British Curry Trail and Food: What goes in you Basket?
