Rachel Khoo facts for kids

Rachel Khoo (born August 28, 1980) is a British cook, author, and TV presenter. She has hosted and co-hosted cooking shows on channels like the BBC, Food Network, and Netflix. In 2012, she became well-known internationally for her cookbook and TV series, The Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking with Rachel Khoo.

Early Life and Education

Rachel Khoo was born in Croydon, a part of South London, England. She has a younger brother named Michael. When Rachel was 12, her family moved to Bavaria, Germany, because of her father's job in IT. They lived in the countryside near Munich for four years.

Her father is Malaysian Chinese and moved to the UK from Ipoh, Perak, in Malaysia when he was 16. He later met and married her mother, who is Austrian. When Rachel was 16, her family moved back to the UK and settled near London. She later studied art and design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London.

Career in Cooking and TV

Starting Out in Paris

After finishing university, Rachel Khoo worked in public relations for two years. She wanted an "adventure," so she quit her job and moved to Paris in 2006. Even though she didn't know French, she took a three-month pastry course at Le Cordon Bleu, a famous cooking school.

While living in Paris, she worked part-time as an au pair, helping a family with their children. She also sold perfume at a big department store called Printemps. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, she worked at La Cocotte, a cookbook store and café in Paris. There, she led baking workshops and was the pastry chef.

First Cookbooks and TV Show

In 2010, Rachel got her first book deal for two French cookbooks. These books were later translated into English as Rachel Khoo's Muesli and Granola and Rachel Khoo's Sweet and Savory Pâtés. She also worked briefly in Germany, helping with food events for Volkswagen.

Rachel had an idea for a new English cookbook called The Little Paris Kitchen. To test her recipes, she opened a tiny restaurant in her Paris apartment in the Belleville neighborhood. She could only serve two diners at a time! She used social media to tell people about her restaurant, and it quickly became very popular.

The BBC then decided to make a TV series based on her cookbook, also called The Little Paris Kitchen: Cooking with Rachel Khoo. Her small restaurant closed before the TV show started filming. The six-episode series was filmed in Rachel's Paris kitchen and around the city. It first aired in the UK on March 19, 2012, and later in many other countries. The book The Little Paris Kitchen was also released in 2012 and became a bestseller, selling over 120,000 copies. More than 1.5 million people in the UK watched each episode of the TV series.

More Cookbooks and Global Travels

In September 2013, Rachel released her second English cookbook, My Little French Kitchen. This book shared recipes and stories from her travels across France. It also sold very well.

In 2014, she filmed two new cooking series for BBC Worldwide: Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook: London and Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook: Cosmopolitan Cook. Both shows aired in the UK and around the world. In Cosmopolitan Cook, she visited different cities in Europe and Asia, like Stockholm and Istanbul, and cooked dishes inspired by her trips. Her cookbook, Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook, came out in the UK in February 2015.

In November 2014, she traveled to Malaysia to film an episode for the series A Cook Abroad. This episode, A Cook Abroad: Rachel Khoo's Malaysia, aired in March 2015. In it, she visited her father's family and explored Malaysian food.

Rachel's fourth TV series, Rachel Khoo's Kitchen Notebook: Melbourne, started in Australia in July 2015. In February 2016, she became a new judge on the Australian TV cooking competition My Kitchen Rules for its seventh season. She filmed this show in 2015 while traveling across Australia.

In April 2016, Rachel filmed Zumbo's Just Desserts in Sydney with pastry chef Adriano Zumbo. She was one of the judges on this dessert competition show. It premiered in Australia in August 2016 and later streamed on Netflix in the U.S. in 2018.

Recent Work and New Adventures

Rachel's sixth cookbook, The Little Swedish Kitchen, was released in July 2018. She also started filming a new TV series called My Swedish Kitchen in the Swedish countryside. This show features recipes from her cookbook and premiered in August 2019. It has also aired in Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and on BBC Asia.

In 2020, she appeared in the British TV series Remarkable Places to Eat, where she explored the food culture of Vienna, Austria. In February 2021, Rachel Khoo was announced as a new judge for the British cooking competition Great British Menu.

In August 2022, Rachel became a new judge for the seventh season of the TV baking series The Great Australian Bake Off. This season premiered in Australia in June 2023. She also appeared as a judge for the eighth season of The Great Australian Bake Off, which premiered in September 2024.

In 2024, Rachel Khoo partnered with the British potato chip brand Kettle. She became the first female chef to work with them on a special program to help aspiring female chefs. This program aims to highlight the achievements of women chefs in the British food industry.

Personal Life

Rachel Khoo lived in Paris for eight years, starting in 2006. In 2014, she moved back to London, living in Hoxton. She then moved to Stockholm, Sweden, in 2016. She can speak English, French, German, and some Swedish.

In 2014, she got engaged to Robert Wiktorin, a Swedish businessman, and they married in 2015. They have three children: a son born in 2016, another son born in early 2019, and their third child born in 2022. Rachel says Paris is her favorite city for food. Her family on her mother's side are farmers from Austria, and she spent summers visiting relatives there when she was a child.

In 2024, Rachel and her family moved to a seaside village near Malmö, Sweden. She also launched her newsletter, Les Petits Pleasures, where she shares recipes and travel tips with her subscribers.

TV Shows