Ewa Michalik

Ewa Michalik came to England as a young woman in the early 1970s. Having completed a degree in pharmacology at Chelsea College in London, she found herself drawn more and more frequently to the kitchen of her husband's restaurant and eventually started working there full-time in 1991. Today, Patio Restaurant is one of the oldest and most successful Polish restaurants in London, and has been extremely favourably reviewed by, among others, Waitrose Food Illustrated and The Independent. Having been a guest on a recent broadcast on BBC Radio 5's Sunday morning show, Ewa has also spoken about beetroot on BBC Radio 4's 'Veg Talk' and prepared traditional dishes for various BBC programmes on eastern European cooking. Ewa attributes her love of food to her mother, with whom she spent many hours preparing meals in her childhood in Grybow in the Carpathian mountains. Today, Ewa still cooks many of the traditional recipes learned in her youth. Consistently disproving the cliché that Polish food is stodgy and dull by serving her many customers light, fresh and delicious classics, Ewa has done much to advance the popularity of Polish food.