Imagine ringing up the Michelin Guide and asking them, point blank, why they haven't given you a star yet. Most of us wouldn't dare. Dame Prue Leith absolutely did.
The Phone Call That Still Makes Her Cringe
Speaking to a delighted crowd at the Hay Festival this week, the Great British Bake Off legend — who steps down from the show this year — confessed to a moment of breathtaking boldness that even she can barely believe now.
"I finally rang up the Michelin Guide because I was indignant — I knew we were good enough," she told the audience. "Now I think, how could I have done that?"
"I said I wanted to know why we haven't got a star." — Dame Prue Leith, aged 86, on the call she made to the Michelin Guide editor
The Inspector Had a Very Big Book
Far from hanging up, the Michelin editor invited himself and an inspector to Leith's restaurant for lunch. What followed was an eye-opener.
The inspector produced a detailed log of every visit ever made to her Notting Hill restaurant — including the number of breads in the basket on each occasion. Seven one time. Three the next. Just one after that.
Prue, who opened Leith's in 1969, could trace every dip in quality back to a baker who left, a chef who went on strike. The Michelin man had noticed it all.
She Did What He Said — and It Worked
"We did all the things he told us," Prue told the festival crowd, "and the next year, we got a Michelin star." The wait? A mere 25 years.
The 86-year-old was appearing in Hay Festival's My Life in Books series, reflecting on the literature that shaped her remarkable career — including Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, which opened her eyes to the culture of bullying and harassment she'd been lucky enough to avoid.
"It blew the lid off the culture of bullying and sexual harassment," she said. "It was just thought of as funny and a joke." Not to Prue, it wasn't.
