Romy Gill

Head Chef, Columnist, MBE

Romy Gill opened her restaurant, Romy’s Kitchen in September 2013 on Castle Street, Thornbury. She was one of the few female Indian chef/owners on the UK restaurant scene, and was appointed an MBE in the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list in 2016. Her style of Indian cooking is very different from that found at the majority of Indian restaurants in the UK. She avoids the use of unnatural food colourings, and is a fan of combining Indian and British cuisine. She combines spices and flavours that she grew up with in India with ingredients that she was only introduced to when she moved to the UK.

Romy contributes regularly to food publications such as Crumbs, Olive, Delicious, Saveur and Food52, and has featured in The Guardian, where she had a residency in April 2016, The Observer, The Telegraph, Evening Standard. In 2017, Romy travelled to India with Suitcase Magazine, where she explored and wrote articles on Ladakh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and writes regularly for them.

Romy is the new monthly recipe columnist for Indy Food online and has written and featured in various magazines, newspapers. She has just published her first cook book Zaika.

Romy is a regular and a judge for the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards, plus she has been featured on Saturday Live, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC Asian Network and 5Live.

Romy appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, Masterchef, The Hairy Bikers in their Comfort Food series. She has featured as the subject of a film short on “Family Dinners” on Food Network UK. James Martin Saturday TV and will be appearing on Ready Steady Cook when it returns to our screens in 2020.

She is Slow Food UK Chef Alliance member and cooked for England at Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, Turin, Italy in Sep, 2016.

Romy works with Frank Water Charity and Action Against Hunger Charity raising money which supplies clean drinking water in India and provide food and skills to people in Bangladesh, Burma and India.