Elizabeth Haigh facts for kids
Elizabeth "Liz" Haigh (born May 1988) is a talented chef from Singapore. She became well-known after appearing on the TV show MasterChef in 2011. Later, she helped a restaurant called Pidgin in Hackney earn a special award called a Michelin star. Today, Liz Haigh runs her own restaurant, Mei Mei, which is a type of traditional coffee shop called a kopitiam located in Borough Market in London.
| Born | Elizabeth Allen May 1988 (age 37) Singapore |
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| Education | Central St Martins Westminster Kingsway College |
| Spouse | Steele Haigh |
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Contents
Liz Haigh's Journey in Cooking
Liz Haigh was born in Singapore. Her mother is Singaporean and her father is English. She grew up in a town called Maidenhead in England.
From Architecture to the Kitchen
Liz first studied to become an architect at Central Saint Martins in London. But while she was there, she discovered her true passion was cooking. A friend dared her to try out for the TV show MasterChef.
Her time on MasterChef in 2011 was her first experience cooking for a wider audience. She had only cooked at home or for friends before. She was eliminated early in the competition.
Learning and Growing as a Chef
After MasterChef, Liz decided to become a professional chef. She started working at a restaurant called The Green Oak in Windsor. Then, she moved to the Royal Oak, Paley Street. There, she learned a lot from the head chef, Dominic Chapman.
While working, she also took cooking classes at Westminster Kingsway College. Liz also gained experience at another restaurant called Smokehouse, run by chef Neil Rankin.
Opening Her Own Restaurants
In 2015, Liz Haigh helped start a restaurant called Pidgin. She co-founded it with James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy. They had previously run a successful "supper club" called the Secret Larder.
Pidgin quickly became very popular. It earned a prestigious Michelin star in the 2017 Michelin Guide. Shortly after this big achievement, Liz left Pidgin.
She then started her own company, Kaizen House. Her original plan was to open a restaurant called Shibui in 2018. This restaurant would focus on cooking with wood fires and mix different types of food. However, she decided to delay opening Shibui due to economic concerns.
Instead, at the end of 2019, Liz opened Mei Mei. This restaurant is a kopitiam, which is a traditional coffee shop, located in Borough Market in London.
Concerns About a Cookbook
Liz Haigh released her recipe book, Makan, in May 2021. In October 2021, the publisher, Bloomsbury, decided to stop selling the book. This happened because of "rights issues."
There were concerns that some recipes and stories in Makan were very similar to those in other books. These included a 2012 cookbook by Singaporean author Sharon Wee, called Growing up in a Nonya Kitchen. There were also similarities found with a food blog called Rasa Malaysia and an older Singaporean cookbook from 1981.
A company called Anthony The Spice Maker also noticed that directions for using two of their spice blends in Mei Mei's online catalog were very similar to their own.
Generally, lists of ingredients and basic cooking steps are not protected by copyright laws. However, the way directions are written and other parts of a book can be protected.
