Wahaca, Covent Garden, 2008Wahaca mobile street kitchen, 2012
Thomasina Jean Miers, OBE (born February 1976) is an English cook, writer and television presenter. She is the co-founder of the Wahaca chain of Mexican street food restaurants.
Early life
Thomasina Jean Miers was born in February 1976 in Cheltenham,[1] the daughter of (Michael) Probyn Miers, a joiner and furniture maker,[2] formerly a management consultant[3][4] and Niki Miers, of Guiting Power, Cheltenham.[5][6] She grew up in "a big rambling house" at Acton, West London.[7] The Miers family, landed gentry originally of Aldingham, Cumbria (then in Lancashire), owned the Ynyspenllwch estate in Glamorganshire until the time of her grandfather, Cmdr Richard Eustace Probyn Miers, RN.[8] Miers has a twin brother, Dighton, and a sister, Talulah.[9][7]
In 2005, Miers won the BBC TV cookery competition MasterChef, "impressing judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace with her bold and, at times, eccentric cooking style".[12]
She has made two series of cookery programmes for Channel 4 with co-presenter Guy Grieve: Wild Gourmets[13] in 2007 and A Cook's Tour of Spain in 2008.[14] In 2011, she presented Mexican Food Made Simple for Channel 5.[15]
She is co-editor with Annabel Buckingham of the cookbook Soup Kitchen (with an introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall). She has also written Cook: Smart Seasonal Recipes for Hungry People,[16]The Wild Gourmets: Adventures in Food and Freedom, with Guy Grieve,[17] and Mexican Food Made Simple.[18]
Miers co-founded Wahaca, which became a chain of Mexican "street food" restaurants, alongside Mark Selby in 2006.[19] The company opened its first restaurant in London's Covent Garden in August 2007[20] and in October 2008 a second opened at Westfield London.[21] Wahaca launched their first mobile kitchen in 2011, selling Mexican street food on the streets of London.[22] By the end of 2017 Wahaca had 25 branches,[23] and in January 2021 there were 13.[24]
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