Peter Boizot, MBE, is a Soho legend.  In 1965 he introduced the pizza to Londoners when he imported an Italian oven into the first ever Pizza Express in Wardour Street.  The popularity of the jazz club below his Dean Street pizzeria lead to the founding of the Soho Jazz Festival.  He fought the very successful Save Piccadilly campaign, was a founder member of the Soho Society and the Soho Restaurateurs Association and supported in no small measure Soho Housing Association.

We interviewed him about those pioneering days at his home in Peterborough.

The original London coffee bar. Opened in the middle of the last century initially to provide workers in the Soho area a place to eat after they finished work in the local restaurants, it went on to became a beloved institution.
Still family owned, it is now run by the grandsons of the original owner. Tony tells the story.

The charismatic and much loved  Antonio Carluccio cannot easily be pigeon-holed.  Not a chef, yet so much more than a cook; not a businessman by his own admission,  yet he is the originator of the highly successful Carluccio's brand.

His passion for good, simple and flavoursome cooking, not to mention a great love of mushrooms, has inspired countless millions who have seen his television series and read his books on Italian food and life.

In this interview he talks about his earliest memories of food and shares anecdotes of his family and childhood in war-time Italy as well as the birth of Carluccio's.   And by the way, there are even some English dishes he loves!