Presenter biographies: P-R

Merrilees developed her style of no-nonsense food at The Lansdowne in London's Primrose Hill. She was a food researcher for the BBC and Channel 4 for several years and worked closely with Antony Worrall Thompson on his restaurants and catering events company.

Merrilees first appeared on BBC Two's Anything You Can Cook, which she co-presented with Brian Turner, before becoming the resident cook on House Call in 2001. In 2005 she presented the BBC Two programme Full on Food together with Heston Blumenthal and Richard Corrigan, followed by BBC Two's Planet Food in 2006. She has also appeared on BBC One's Saturday Kitchen.

Merrilees also contributes to BBC Good Food magazine and now runs her own catering company, Pink Food.

Chain-smoking, hard-drinking, outspoken, politically incorrect, jolly and ever so slightly dotty, Jennifer Paterson was one of our most-loved TV chefs.

Jennifer was an unlikely TV food celebrity who claimed she had never had a cookery lesson in her life. She was, though, an enthusiastic cook from the age of four, spending hours hovering in the kitchen concocting what she described as 'little messes' and 'horrible little pies'.

Born in London, the daughter of an army officer, she spent the first four years of her life in China before her family returned to live in Rye, East Sussex. She was expelled from her convent boarding school at the age of 15 for being disruptive.

She developed her talent for cooking when she later lived abroad, in Berlin, Portugal, Venice, Sicily and Benghazi in Libya, looking after the children of various friends and family.

In 1952, she returned to England and worked for various magazines before working behind the scenes for the ITV show Candid Camera and as an assistant stage manager at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. Other jobs included the unlikely role of matron at a girls' boarding school near Reading and housekeeper to a Ugandan diplomat.

She was a familiar face on the London party circuit in the 1960s. In 1977, she became the cook for Spectator magazine, cooking for star guests from a tiny kitchen on the top floor, and stayed for 15 years.

Despite meeting Clarissa Dickson-Wright at a party in Tuscany in 1991, it was several years before the Two Fat Ladies series was conceived by producer Patricia Llewellyn, and the pair was brought together to forge a partnership that lasted four and a half years.

Jennifer was a devout Catholic who would ride for miles to go to mass during filming. She died 'peacefully, painlessly and full of caviar' on 10 August, 1999 at the age of 71 after losing her battle with lung cancer.

Such a huge personality is sorely missed, but take comfort in the words of her culinary chum, Clarissa Dickson-Wright. Writing about her friend's death in Scotland on Sunday, she said: "Jennifer is no doubt sitting on a cloud, with her bike parked beside her, smoking a fag and discussing menus with St Peter, singing hymns with St Lucy and writing recipes with St Honore before going off to lunch with Noel Coward."

Richard Phillips is chef/patron of the Michelin-starred restaurant Thackeray's in Tunbridge Wells, known for its Modern French-style cooking. He is also a partner in two other food ventures, the fine dining restaurant Hengist in Aylesford and The Plough, a gastropub in Amersham.

Richard started his food career with Albert and Michel Roux as a young commis chef at Le Gavroche in London. He worked his way up to chef tournant, which was followed by an eight-month stint in France at a Roux brothers' hotel in Courchevel. He then return to work at Le Soufflé restaurant at London's Intercontinental Hotel. It was while he was here that he was awarded third prize in the 'National Young Chef of the Year' competition, and the restaurant was named Egon Ronay's 'Restaurant of the Year'.

Richard then went to work for Marco Pierre White, overseeing the kitchens of such restaurants as The Oak Room and The Mirabelle, both in central London.

Before making the step into running his own restaurant, Richard also had a stint with the Schrager hotel group in London, putting together teams in both the Sanderson hotel and St Martin's Lane hotel, the first hotels opened by this group outside the US.

Richard appeared on ITV's daytime food series Too Many Cooks as one of three chefs judging members of the public on their culinary skills. He appears regularly on BBC Two's Ready Steady Cook and was a regular chef on the BBC daytime series Step Up to the Plate in autumn 2008.

Birmingham native Glynn Purnell is one of the country’s culinary rising stars. He's also been a major influence in putting his home city firmly on the culinary map. Glynn is chef-proprietor of Purnell's, in Birmingham's financial district, which was awarded its first Michelin star in January 2009. He was previously head chef at Jessica's restaurant, where he earned a Michelin star in 2005.

Glynn started his foray into the restaurant world when he began work experience in the kitchen of the Birmingham Metropole Hotel. Two years later, he left school and returned to pursue an apprenticeship. There, he spent six years working in all areas of the hotel, including the banqueting department and in The Terrace restaurant, which ignited his interest in fine dining.

His talent really shone through when he joined Andreas Antona's Michelin-starred Simpson's restaurant in Kenilworth, as chef de partie. Trips to Europe on 'stages', or placements, were followed eventually with opportunities to work with a number of well known chefs including Gary Rhodes at The Greenhouse, Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine and with Alistair Little, all in London. He's also spent time working in kitchens abroad, with the Pourcel brothers in Montpellier at their Le Jardin des Sens and at Zaldiarán in the Basque country of northern Spain.

In 2002 Glynn joined Claude Bosi at his Michelin-starred Hibiscus restaurant (then still located in Ludlow) as sous chef. It was only after nine months that he moved on to Jessica's; Purnell's opened several years later, in 2007.

Glynn has won numerous awards and critical accolades for his inspired, adventurous cooking.

His first public cooking appearance was at the BBC Good Food Show in 2005 and he has since appeared on Good Food Channel's 'Great Food Live' programme as well as presenting a BBC One documentary called ‘Working The Sea’.

Glynn cooked the winning dessert course in the 2008 series of Great British Menu, representing the central region. In 2009 he returned to represent his region in the fourth series of the programme and this time cooked the winning fish course, Masala spiced monkfish with red lentils, pickled carrots and coconut.

Part restaurant empire-builder, part celebrity, and part sublimely talented chef, Gordon Ramsay is a truly global star in the cooking world.

It all could have been so different. As a teenager he was on the books of Glasgow Rangers FC, but injury put paid to his chances of a professional career. So, imbued with an ambition never to fail again, he switched his attention to cooking.

After catering college this ambition took him to two of London's legendary restaurants - Marco Pierre White's Harvey's and Albert Roux's Le Gavroche - and then on to France to work under Joël Robuchon and Guy Savoy.

A stint as the personal chef of an Australian TV chief was the prelude to his first big break, taking over as part-owner of Aubergine in London in 1993. Within three years he had been awarded two Michelin stars. It wasn't to last. After a bust-up with the restaurant's backers, Gordon left and took all his staff with him to his new venture in Chelsea, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. It became a huge critical success, earning three Michelin stars within three years of opening.

In October 2001, Gordon opened Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, followed by his first international venture, Verre by Gordon Ramsay in the Dubai Hilton Creek Hotel. His fourth restaurant, Pétrus, opened in 2004 and won a Michelin star within seven months. In 2008, Gordon and Pétrus's head chef, Marcus Wareing, parted ways; Gordon Ramsay Holdings reserved ownership of the restaurant name, and the existing restaurant was renamed as Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley. The 'new' Pétrus is expected to open at the end of 2009, minutes away from its original location.

Gordon now has several restaurants in London, as well as restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, Florida, Dubai, Tokyo, South Africa, the Republic of Ireland and Versailles, France. He is due to open two new restaurants in Italy in summer 2009, in Tuscany and Sardinia. In 2007 Ramsay opened his first pub, The Narrow, in east London, followed by Devonshire House in Chiswick, west London. Two-thousand eight saw the opening of a refurbished The Warrington pub in London's Maida Vale and Ramsay has plans to open more gastropubs in the capital.

His first airport venture, Plane Food, opened at Heathrow's Terminal 5 in early 2008, followed by Maze Grill, which joined Maze, in London's Grosvenor Square. His latest venture, headed by protégée Angela Hartnett, is a boutique hotel, restaurant and deli called York & Albany, opened in London in autumn 2008.

All this might not have made him the celebrity he is, however, had it not been for his legendary temper which has made him a favourite with TV programme makers. He has been the star of several much-talked-about series, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen and The F-word. Gordon is also a contributor to BBC Good Food magazine and Olive magazine. Gordon has also written more than a dozen books, the most recent being Gordon Ramsay's Great British Pub Food, which he co-wrote with Mark Sargeant; it was published in March 2009.

In Her Majesty's New Year's honours list for 2006, Gordon Ramsay was awarded an OBE for services to the hospitality industry.

Theo was born in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1967. His passion for food developed from childhood, when family holidays were spent driving through rural Italy while his parents stocked up on delicacies to take home. His cooking remains inspired and influenced predominantly by Italian regional cuisine.

A relaxed and softly spoken person, Theo has nevertheless established himself as one of the most respected chefs in the country. Starting his career in 1986 with a four-year stint at Chez Max in Surbiton, Theo was classically trained by chef and owner Max Magarian.

Theo then worked as chef at the River Café, taking one year out to work with Alice Waters of California's Chez Panisse. He then returned to the River Café, where he was promoted to head chef and invited to become a partner in the company. He stayed there for a total of ten years, during which he earned a Michelin star in 1997. He now has his own restaurant, Theo Randall at the Intercontinental in London, which opened in November 2006. It won Best Italian Restaurant at the London Restaurant Awards barely a year later.

Theo spent much of the summer of 2006 travelling through rural Italy and France in search of the best suppliers in preparation for the opening of his restaurant. His favourite restaurants are all located in Italy; his menu is therefore inspired by the simple, rustic dishes he has enjoyed during his travels there.

Theo has been a guest chef on Saturday Kitchen and appeared in the BBC Two series Food Poker in autumn 2007. He was a regular chef on the BBC daytime series Step Up to the Plate in autumn 2008.

As well as appearing on a number of TV shows, Paul Rankin runs a successful restaurant business, the Rankin Group, in his native Belfast. His wife Jeanne is also a familiar face, cooking alongside him.

Paul left Belfast to travel around the world in 1980, and met Jeanne on the way. They travelled together, often working in kitchens to earn some cash.

In 1984, they ended up at Le Gavroche, the Roux brothers' restaurant in London. There, they worked their way up the kitchen ladder, learning the tricks of the trade.

The couple then started travelling again, working in Canada before returning to Belfast and setting up a restaurant called Roscoff. The restaurant won Northern Ireland's first Michelin star which they kept for eight years running. They closed Roscoff in 1999, but refitted the premises and opened Cayenne, a restaurant with a more informal feel.

Over the years, the Rankin Group has extended its portfolio in Northern Ireland to include Cayenne, two Rain City restaurants and six Café Paul Rankins. In addition to several new cafés and restaurants opening across Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, Paul has revived Roscoff, opening Roscoff Brasserie in Belfast city centre in autumn 2004 after a five-year break.

Paul and Jeanne have appeared together in three series of a television culinary journey called Gourmet Ireland. Together, they have written five books, New Irish Cookery being their latest publication. Paul also hosted three series of The Rankin Challenge, for television, with numerous appearances on Masterchef and Who'll do the Pudding?. He is also one of the long time favourites on Ready Steady Cook. Paul appeared in the BBC Two series Food Poker in autumn 2007 and was a regular chef on the BBC daytime series Step Up to the Plate in autumn 2008. He also appeared in BBC Two's Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is.

Shaun Rankin, originally from Yorkshire, always wanted to be a chef, and set out to become one at the age of 14. He learned the trade at The Mayfair hotel in London as an apprentice, as well as attending the Thames Valley University at Slough as a day release student. He returned to Yorkshire in 1992, after three years in London, and took a position as chef de partie at the Black Bull Inn in Moulton. Since then he has worked in restaurants as close to home as his home town of Darlington and as far afield as Chicago and Australia.

However, Shaun has spent the majority of his career in Jersey. After two years at the Black Bull Inn, he spent eight years at Longueville Manor, where he worked as a sous chef for Andrew Bird and learned the value of a kitchen garden. He followed this with a stint at the establishment’s sister restaurant, Sumas.

He was asked to open Bohemia restaurant as its head chef in 2003. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in 2005 and has also been named one of the top 25 UK restaurants by Egon Ronay.

Shaun describes his island home, which he shares with wife Cheryl and son Ethan, as a '19-mile-long garden' and uses the produce from this garden as often as he can. He likes to interact as much as possible with his customers at the restaurant's 'kitchen table'.

In 2009 Shaun represented the south-west in the fourth series of BBC Two's Great British Menu, for which he cooked the winning dessert. His winning dish was Treacle tart with Jersey clotted cream and raspberry coulis.

Perhaps more than any other chef, Gary Rhodes has reinvigorated British cooking with his own modern twist on the traditional.

Fittingly, Gary's first culinary success was a traditional lemon sponge made for his family when he was 14. It was the pleasure of that occasion that encouraged him to go to catering college at Broadstairs in Kent.

Three years later, he was student of the year and soon found himself a job at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam as a junior chef. Not long after, however, he had a life-changing experience when he was hit by a tram and had to undergo brain surgery. Fortunately, he made a complete recovery, proposed to his college girlfriend and returned to England to work at the Capital Hotel.

Gary received his first Michelin star at the Castle Hotel in Somerset, and another at The Greenhouse in Mayfair, where he revived some great British classics, such as faggots, braised oxtails and bread and butter pudding. He owns Rhodes 24 in London's tallest building, the Rhodes Restaurant at Calabash, Grenada, Arcadian Rhodes, located on the P&O superliner and two restaurants within the Cumberland hotel in London's West End.

Gary's latest restaurant, Rhodes South, opened in the grounds of the Christchurch Harbour hotel in Dorset in November 2008; it joins his other Dorset restaurant, Kings Rhodes, which opened in August 2008.

His first TV appearance was presenting a live ten-minute slot in 1987, an experience he recalls as "pretty nerve-racking". He became a huge success and has since presented several TV series including Gary Rhodes' Cookery Year, Rhodes around Britain, a cookery series for children based on Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes and Gary Rhodes At the Table. He has also hosted MasterChef. In between, he's even found the time to write several very successful cookery books, and is a contributor to BBC Good Food magazine.

As well as being a lover of food, Gary is a keen supporter of Manchester United and has a passion for cars, with his greatest ambition being to drive a Formula One car.

In 1990 Simon Rimmer spotted a gap in the market for innovative vegetarian food and used his inspiration to open his restaurant, Greens, in Manchester. Two years later, the Guardian described Greens as one of the most exciting new restaurants in UK, and it has gone on to win several awards, including The Big Issue's Restaurant of the Year, and North-west Restaurant of the Year.

Simon's television career began with Granada Breeze, hosting shows such as Livetime and Battle of the Chefs. He has also appeared regularly on programmes including This Morning, Granada Tonight, A Taste for Travel, Lunchtime Live and The Afternoon Show, Gloria's Open House on Channel 5 and Xchange for CBBC.

Simon presented This Little Farmer for BBC One and now co-presents Something For The Weekend on BBC Two. He also presented the weekday BBC Two series Recipe for Success. He appeared in the first series of Great British Menu, representing the North and competing against Marcus Wareing.

His first book, The Accidental Vegetarian, was published in October 2004 to great acclaim. His second book, The Rebel Cook, was published in October 2006. He co-wrote Lazy Brunch with Tim Lovejoy, which was published in February 2008. His most recent book, The Seasoned Vegetarian, was published in February 2009.

Simon has a degree in fashion and textile design, and, when not busy with cooking and television, continues to freelance as a textile designer and ceramic decorator.

A passion for mountaineering via a brief stint as a dishwasher led Mike Robinson to the television work he does today. Spotted while working as a chef in Chamonix and asked to present Chalet Slaves, in the space of three years Mike has become an accomplished television presenter. He has presented several series for Good Food Channel, Style and Gardens, including Heaven's Kitchen. All of these series were filmed on location at Mike's pub/restaurant, The Pot Kiln, near Newbury. Mike's first book, Wild Flavours – Recipes from Heaven's Kitchen was published in October 2005. He also writes regularly for The Field and carries out cookery demonstrations.

Mike has always been an outdoors man and his greatest passion is cooking game and wild food. A love of fly-fishing introduced him to the damage the signal crayfish does to the river environment. Having made a programme about this subject for Good Food Channel, Mike decided that this valuable commodity ought to be harvested and Mike Robinson Wild Foods was born in spring 2004, supplying many of London's top restaurants.

Mike re-opened the Harwood Arms gastropub in Fulham, London, in September 2008 with Brett Graham (formerly of the Ledbury restaurant in London) and Edwin Vaux of the acclaimed but now defunct Vaux brewery in Sunderland. Here, all of the venison served is shot by Mike himself in Berkshire.

Mike makes regular appearances on Saturday Kitchen and is one of the chefs sharing his expertise in BBC Food's video recipe console, Get Cooking.

The partnership of Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray has gone from strength to strength since they set up the River Café in the late 1980s. Along the way, they have welcomed celebrities on both sides of the kitchen door.

Ruth and Rose opened the River Café as a simple place, serving lunch to Hammersmith locals. It soon became a big hit, attracting food lovers from across London. Their aim was to provide a little piece of stylish Italy on the banks of the Thames.

The restaurant has become famous and its reputation brings in equally well-known diners. It has spawned books of the River Café recipes from the menu, plus a cookery school. The restaurant was unfortunately closed for six months following a devastating fire in April 2008, but reopened later that year with a new look.

Ruth and Rose have also brought their love of Italian cuisine to TV and it was during the making of one programme that Jamie Oliver was discovered working in the kitchen. Another famous ex-member of the River Café staff is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Levi Roots grew up in Jamaica where his grandmother taught him the magic of Caribbean cooking. He later moved to England, but yearned for the music and sunshine of Jamaica.

To combat his homesickness he would spend hours in the kitchen, preparing the recipes his grandmother had given him and refining her recipe for jerk chicken sauce - a mission that led to him appearing on BBC Two's Dragons' Den where he won financial backing to market his sauce commercially.

In June 2007, Levi opened his first café and takeway in Brixton, London, called Papine Jerk Centre.

Alongside cooking, Levi is a musician with a love for reggae and roots music. He was nominated for 'Best Reggae Singer' at the 1998 MOBO Awards and recording several albums.

In June 2008 Levi's first book Reggae Reggae Cookbook was published.

Levi first appeared on BBC Two's Ready Steady Cook in June 2008. He will present his first cookery show, Caribbean Food Made Easy, in August 2009.

Oliver Rowe's professional career took off in 1997 when, having achieved a 2:1 degree from Southampton University in drama and English, he started work at Moro restaurant in Exmouth Market, London. This followed a spell of working with food in both Tuscany and Greece.

He remained at Moro for nearly four years, starting off as a junior chef and rising to become deputy head chef. He left the restaurant in 2001 to take on the role of head chef at Maquis, an Anglo-French restaurant in Hammersmith, London. On returning from a working visit to France, Oliver set up his own café, Konstam, in 2004.

In April 2006 Oliver opened a restaurant in London's King Cross, called Konstam at the Prince Albert. The restaurant's menu is based on ingredients sourced from in and around the capital, limited to sources from within the M25, and from places accessible by the London Underground network (there are exceptions, such as the wines, tea, coffee and spices; roughly 85 per cent of the ingredients, though, are from London). It was during the opening of this restaurant that Oliver filmed The Urban Chef on BBC Two, a series that followed Oliver's search for ingredients and battles with building schedules to open his restaurant on time. He also appeared in the 2006 series of Local Food Heroes on Good Food Channel.

Born and raised in Bulgaria, now living in London since 1986, Silvena is the executive chef for the Baltic Restaurant Group, which includes the London restaurants Baltic, Wodka and Chez Kristoff.

A regular guest on Saturday Kitchen on BBC One, Silvena is also known for her cookery demonstrations, having worked as a presenter for Mosimann’s Academy of Culinary Excellence, Baker and Spice, and Books for Cooks, all in London. Silvena also works as food consultant and recipe developer for a major British food retailer.

As well as creating the recipes for the Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Diet, Silvena has collaborated with Malcolm Gluck for the book Supergrub, and written her own cookery book, Feasts - Food for Sharing from Central and Eastern Europe in 2006. This was quickly followed by The Eastern and Central European Kitchen, published in 2007.

Silvena was food consultant and designer for David Cronenberg's London-based film, Eastern Promises.