Our Woman of the Year 2025 | Our Lifetime Achievement Award recipient | A note from Bibendum Wine | Our 2025 judges
A note from Adam Hyman
When we first started CODE Hospitality’s Women of the Year in 2018, I was very conscious, as a man, that it was something I needed to consult women on first, before we launched the initiative. At the time, Lisa Markwell – a chef and journalist who is now editor of The Telegraph Magazine – was editor at CODE. Lisa was instrumental in establishing a critical framework that would help us to produce a meaningful and impactful list. Her insight was invaluable.
Fast forward to 2025, and while I do believe the hospitality industry has evolved for the better in certain aspects (work-life balance, for example) it is still clear that sexism persists, especially in kitchens. Sally Abé, Dara Klein and Poppy O’Toole must be applauded for their open letter in response to the comments Jason Atherton made in an interview with The Times. The conversation it has created and allowed is so vital to how we make change happen.
However, as this goes to print, the percentage of male signatories to the open letter remains below 20%. It’s clear from listening to women that for sexism in the industry to be eradicated, men have to be part of the conversation and have to speak up about sexism, especially around their male peers. It has reminded me that, as the founder of CODE, I have a responsibility to speak up about sexism, and other negative behaviours in hospitality myself, both internally to my team and to the wider industry. While this has to be an industry-wide effort, I hope that our annual Women of the Year helps to not only fly the flag for all the amazing women in hospitality but also helps our industry advance the conversation about workplace culture.
Finally, I want to say congratulations to all the women on this year’s list. A big thank you to our sponsors Bibendum and also to our panel of judges for their invaluable insight and opinion in choosing the final list – over pains suisses and cappuccinos at Maison François – from over 1,400 nominations. It’s never an easy task but each year we make sure we highlight the women who are going above and beyond in their jobs and are making hospitality a better place for all of the people who work in it.
Adam Hyman
Founder, Knife & Fork Media
Woman of the Year
Natalia Ribbe
Founder, Sète & LOR (Ladies of Restaurants)
Natalia Ribbe launched Ladies of Restaurants (LOR), a network for women in the hospitality industry, in 2016. She reactivated it eighteen months ago and has barely stopped to take a breath since. From her base in Margate, where she runs restaurant and wine bar Sète, she’s taken LOR on the road to London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and brought women together to share knowledge, solve problems, plot, plan, and drive change. She’s a changemaker, a campaigner, and a deserving winner of CODE’s Woman of the Year 2025.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Dame Karen Jones
Chair, Hawksmoor; Co-Chair, Hospitality Sector Council
Over a decades-long career, Dame Karen Jones has changed the face of hospitality on the high street. From Dome and Café Rouge in the 1980s, to Spirit Group in the early 2000s, and on to the present day and her roles at Deliveroo, Hawksmoor, Frontier Pubs, and Mowgli, Jones has never lost sight of what it’s all about and who it’s all for.
CODE Hospitality’s Women of the Year 2025
Sally Abé
Chef and Campaigner
Sally Abé, along with Poppy O’Toole and Dara Klein, was behind the open letter signed by 70 female chefs, that was transmitted to the world in February 2025, calling out sexism and inequality in professional kitchens. Abé has long been a champion of women in the workforce, with female chefs comprising 80% of her kitchen at The Pem, compared with an industry standard of 20%. Abé has an impressive CV, having worked for Gordon Ramsay at The Savoy and Claridge’s; for Brett Graham at The Ledbury and The Harwood Arms; and competed on Great British Menu. 2024 saw the publication of her memoir A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen.
Ali Ross
General Manager, The Coach and Horses
Ali Ross will be a familiar face to anyone who has propped up the bar at Soho institution The Coach and Horses on Greek Street. Ross has put in the hard yards at Fuller’s for over 13 years, working in pubs across the city before landing at The Coach and Horses in 2019. The media love the pub and love her too; she has featured in the Standard and Time Out (“London’s toughest landladies”) and has also produced her own zine Serving Women, featuring interviews with 13 formidable Soho women. “Ali speaks out for pubs, showing that they are inclusive and exciting places to be,” says a nominator.
Jenny Thompson
Co-founder and Director, Market Operations
Credit where credit’s due, it was Jenny Thompson and Nick Johnson who sparked the current food hall trend, with their £175K refurbishment of the Grade II-listed old Altrincham Market back in 2014. By bringing together independent traders including Honest Crust and Tender Cow under one roof for the first time, they created a new model for their traders, and brought about transformative change in the town centre. They completed the hat trick with two more food halls, Mackie Mayor in Manchester in 2017 and Picturedrome Macclesfield in 2019. Thompson now employs over 200 members of staff and is a passionate advocate for inclusion in hospitality and employing people with disabilities. A “northern powerhouse”, she was awarded MBE in The King’s New Year’s Honours in 2024.
Mouna Elkekhia
Founder and Director, Arnabeet and Mouna’s Kitchen
Syrian chef and entrepreneur Mouna Elkekhia turned to family recipes from her home city of Aleppo when she was separated from her family during the Syrian civil war. She began selling them through Mouna’s Kitchen, the catering and home delivery service she established in 2018. She’s followed up that success since, with her street food brand Arnabeet (Arabic for cauliflower), which has been at KERB’s Seven Dials Market since 2023. Arnabeet ranks among the market’s most commercially successful tenants. Elkekhia, who had a career in human rights before pivoting into food, has mentored and employed five fellow refugees through TERN, The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network, three of whom have gone on to set up their own food businesses.
Ophélie Théberge
General Manager, Juliet Restaurant
A new breed of restaurant calls for a new breed of general manager and Ophélie Théberge at Juliet Restaurant in Stroud, sister restaurant to the Woolpack Inn in Slad, is one such. Having grown up on her parents’ biodynamic vineyard, Domaine Bergeville, in Québec, and having worked her way across Europe, harvesting grapes in Italy and Austria, Théberge brings a deep-seated knowledge of wine to her work. She was pouring wine at the much missed Rubedo in Stoke Newington, before leaving London for Gloucestershire.
Emma Piggott
Owner and Director, The Prince Arthur, You Call The Shots, Bing Bong Pizza
Emma Piggott is a creative restaurateur who’s helped make The Prince Arthur Time Out’s Best Gastropub; created standout concepts like Bing Bong Pizza at You Call The Shots; and booked names such as Paris Rosina, Spasia Dinkovski, and Marie Mitchell for pop-ups. Such endeavours have driven 26% growth across the group. However, those who have worked with her focus far more on her backstage endeavours. “Her greatest achievement lies in fostering a workplace culture where inclusion, fairness, and empowerment thrive.” Under her leadership, female team members unanimously report feeling safe at work, being treated, promoted and paid equitably. She’s an “unsung hero” and a mentor to many.
Nicky Burston
Chief Executive Officer, The Drinks Trust
Nicky Burston has had a long career in drinks, working at Diageo and Robert Mondavi and founding her own agency. In 2020, she joined The Drinks Trust, a charity founded in 1886 as a benevolent society for employees of the wine and spirit trade. Fast forward a century and a half, and its remit is no less relevant. As Chief Executive Officer, Burston has developed initiatives including Develop, an educational and vocational programme that has trained over 2000 students; and proactive welfare solution The Wellbeing Business Advisory Programme. It has also partnered with diversity initiative Equal Measures. “Nicky’s ambition is to ensure that everyone in the drinks and hospitality industry knows The Drinks Trust is there for them in their time of need.”
Maria McCann
Head of Operations, Blacklock
Maria McCann has steered the ship at Blacklock, the chophouse group which celebrated its tenth birthday this year, as it sailed beyond London into Manchester in 2024, and set its sights on Birmingham for autumn 2025. Head of Ops at Blacklock since 2022, McCann has had nearly two decades experience in the industry, working for brands including Hard Rock and Shake Shack. She’s praised as a positive and supportive leader internally who looks beyond her own four walls, partnering with hospitality charities, and working as one of Be Inclusive Hospitality’s Elevate mentors.
Normah Abd Hamid
Founder, Normah’s
Recipes aren’t always learned at a mother’s knee. Normah Abd Hamid, founder of traditional Malaysian restaurant Normah’s in Queensway, London, learned to cook at her father’s knee; it was he who had learned from his mother, Normah’s grandmother, who used to run a café. When he died young, Abd Hamid cooked for her siblings (she’s from a family of 13). She’s been cooking these family recipes at Normah’s since she swapped accountancy for the restaurant business in 2015. Restaurant critic Tom Parker-Bowles sums up Normah’s appeal: “Good value, home-cooked Malaysian food, prepared by one of the nicest women you could imagine.”
Sara Assad-Mannings
Co-founder, Bunhead Bakery
Bunhead Bakery came into existence during lockdown when its Palestinian co-founder and head baker Sara Assad-Mannings first started a baking business in her one-bedroom flat for a bit of fun. The film school grad and self-taught baker had worked in TV, charity, and accountancy previously, but it wasn’t until the launch of Bunhead Bakery (with co-founder Georgia Wickremeratne) that she was really able to explore what she calls the “pillars of her personality” – namely, Palestine, South London, and food. Bunhead Bakery’s bricks and mortar site in Herne Hill opened in May 2024, and now sells out its daily menu of Palestinian-inspired bakes such as a Gazan green shatta and mature Cheddar bun, a sage tea drizzle cake, and a sumac brownie. Profits from special collab buns go to projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
Christina Rasmussen
Wine Writer and Co-Founder, LITTLEWINE
Christina Rasmussen, the co-founder of LITTLEWINE, is a Danish wine writer and budding winemaker based between London and France. LITTLEWINE is what she calls a winemaker-led “knowledge platform”, designed for sommeliers, importers, distributors and buyers. As head of content, Rasmussen’s responsible for all the words, images, video and audio on the platform, her aim being to democratise wine knowledge and offer the next best thing to standing in the vineyard with the winemakers. “Opening up this much information is going to change the game for staff training and individual learning,” says one supporter. Rasmussen studied French at university and worked in wine PR, before embarking on her wine-writing and content career.
Darcie Maher
Owner and Pastry Chef, Lannan Bakery
Darcie Maher sells her Insta-famous rhubarb and custard tart, pain au chocolat, and bergamot and olive oil croissant tart, out of her two-year-old bakery in leafy Stockbridge, Edinburgh. The queues are, by now, nearly as famous, starting as early as 6am. Maher is only in her late 20s but she’s been working in kitchens since she was 15. She was pastry chef at the Palmerston before launching Lannan (with the Palmerston folk’s backing). This year, she closed Lannan for a renovation. The new prep area is hidden downstairs but is as beautiful as the public-facing shop. Maher told Vogue: “I want it to be inspiring for the bakers”. She now has 14 employees. A café is coming soon.
Jules Pearson
Global VP of F&B Development, Ennismore; Creative Specialist, Chef’s Table; Co-founder, London On The Inside
This Middlesbrough-born creative has her hands in many pies. Known for her extraordinary ability to sniff out a new trend and support new talent, she has an exciting new consultancy role for Chef’s Table globally. In her role at Ennismore, she has 46 new venues across 15 hotels in 11 countries opening this year alone. And if that doesn’t keep her busy enough, she is hands-on as co-founder and editor-at-large of digital title London On The Inside and of Sausage Press, the indie imprint which last year released its own limited edition wine (because why not?). When she’s not travelling for work, she’s travelling for fun. “A huge presence on London’s hospitality scene.
Guirong Wei
Chef and Restaurateur, Xi’an Impression, Master Wei, Dream Xi’an
Guirong Wei was one of just four female chefs among one thousand male chefs when she went to culinary school in Xi’an, the capital city of Shaanxi province, at the age of 15. Would any of them have guessed that it would be she who would end up achieving international fame, as she did in 2024, when an episode of Chef’s Table devoted to her aired on Netflix? Wei moved to London, speaking no English, to work at Barshu in Soho in 2008. In 2015, she and her husband Song Yong, opened Xi’an Impression in Highbury, with restaurateur Chao Zhang. Her own solo restaurant, Master Wei in Bloomsbury, followed in 2019. She now has four restaurants devoted to the food of Shaanxi. She’s best known for her biang biang noodles, learned from her grandmother.
Imme Ermgassen
Co-founder, Botivo
Small batch non-alcoholic aperitivo Botivo is born of the partnership between branding whizz Imme Ermgassen and drinks creator Sam Paget Steavenson. Botivo wouldn’t have succeeded if it didn’t taste great – kudos to Paget Steavenson for investigating the alchemy of slow fermented apples and assorted botanicals – but for the name of a 0% ABV beverage to roll so readily off bartenders’ and drinkers’ tongues in the space of just four years? The credit goes to Ermgassen. In 2024, Botivo successfully raised £900K to help it scale internationally and achieved its long-held goal of achieving B Corp certification. The brand’s 2025 achievements include a nationwide listing at Waitrose and a limited edition collab with Berry Bros. & Rudd.
Jessica Filbey
Head Chef, Canteen
The brigade at Canteen, the new Italian restaurant from the Public House group, doesn’t look like many other brigades, because it’s predominantly female. Jessica Filbey leads the team as head chef, bringing with her six years of experience at The River Cafe. Filbey didn’t go straight into cooking; she studied Spanish and history of art at Edinburgh first, then spent several years in food and drink PR (at Taste, Wild Card, and Stir) before doing the Diploma at Leith’s School of Food and Wine. Canteen is a wildly oversubscribed opening and unbookable to boot. This puts pressure on the kitchen; Filbey is impressively calm under fire.
Jessica Aggarwal
Co-founder, Prept Foundation
Jessica Aggarwal is leading the charge at Prept, the charity dedicated to changing the way food education is taught in primary schools, secondary schools and holiday clubs. Its roots are in Sussex – it started out as Table Talk Foundation – but it’s now building up its national presence, tapping into a powerful network of chefs such as Lisa Goodwin-Allen, Chet Sharma and Kray Treadwell and partners such as Shrub and Ridgeview. Farm trips, beekeeper visits, taste and sensory classes, and knife skills sessions all help instill in children an early love of food and cooking.
Lucy Bosi
Co-owner, Josephine Bouchon and Bibendum
As the song goes, behind every great man, there has to be a great woman. In Claude Bosi’s case it’s his wife and business partner Lucy. Lucy Bosi, who worked for online reservations platform Toptable back in the day, has been behind the scenes of all Claude’s restaurants, working across marketing, communications, and PR. Josephine Bouchon in Fulham, however, is their first joint venture. Having opened to rave reviews from day one in 2024, the Lyonnais-style bistro has already spawned a sequel, opening in Marylebone in 2025.
Lorraine Copes
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Be Inclusive Hospitality
Lorraine Copes is a hospitality industry ‘slashie’: a coach, speaker, consultant, entrepreneur, and writer. She has a BSc in logistics and two decades’ experience in procurement for groups such as Gordon Ramsay Restaurants and Corbin & King. However, it is as founder of Be Inclusive Hospitality that she is best known. Her mission is not only to champion racial equality in the food and drink industries, but to accelerate it. BIH does this through research, partnerships, EDI training and consultancy, mentorship, scholarships, awards and events. A natural networker, she lives by the African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Kelly Sidgwick
Director, Good Chemistry Brewing
They’re celebrating ten years of good beer at Good Chemistry, the brewery co-founded by Kelly Sidgwick and Bob Cary in Bristol in 2015. In 2021, Sidgwick started She Drinks Beer, a monthly night down the pub – traditionally considered an exclusively male domain – for women who enjoy beer; and for International Women’s Day, they did a hands-on brew day at the brewery. Sidgwick “challenges the norm for sustainability and inclusivity” and has created a friendly female and LGBTQ+ community around Good Chemistry’s brewery and pubs. “Her integrity is contagious, not just within her businesses but in the wider industry.”
Paula Fitzherbert
Global Head of Communications, Maybourne
Paula Fitzherbert does not stop, working around the clock for Maybourne’s properties across the world, including Claridge’s, The Connaught, The Berkeley, The Maybourne Beverly Hills and The Maybourne Riviera. 2024 saw her successfully launch The Emory, Maybourne’s first new-build hotel and London’s first all-suite hotel. She won’t have much time to put her feet up this year either; she’s just brought La Môme from Cannes to The Berkeley and has got the new Claridge’s Bakery to launch in late summer 2025, all the while planning ahead for The Maybourne Saint-Germain, a palace-style hotel opening in Paris in 2027. Fitzherbert’s been with Maybourne for over 25 years.
Rachel Kerr-Lapsley
Managing Director, Kelly’s Cause
Rachel Kerr-Lapsley, a Canadian front of house professional with 15 years industry experience, joined Kelly’s Cause in 2021 as operations manager. She’s now managing director and the host and producer of the charity’s podcast Beyond the Pass. It was seeing the hospitality industry lose so many talented individuals to burnout that inspired Kerr-Lapsley to move off the floor and into a hospitality-specific mental health charity created by industry people for industry people. She can now say she’s played a part in training over 2,100 mental health first aiders, as the charity pursues its mission to create a mentally healthy hospitality industry for all. Kelly’s Cause has worked with businesses including Inver, St. John, Ottolenghi and JKS Restaurants.
Sophie Foreman
Co-owner, Ventura Foreman
Looking to recruit floor staff? There’s no surer way to invite a flurry of CVs from potential candidates than offering a staff uniform by Ventura Foreman. The blue cotton canvas aprons at Koya, the cream twill jackets at Kol, the khaki pouches at Osip, the embroidered jackets at Norman’s…? All made in South East London by husband-and-wife partnership Sophie Foreman and Robert Ventura. Foreman is a London College of Fashion graduate who worked in product and accessories design before moving into workwear in 2018.
Vanessa Fernandes
Co-owner and Chef, Mambow
While it is chef Abby Lee is the face of Mambow, The Good Food Guide’s best London local restaurant and Time Out’s Best London Restaurant in 2024, co-owner Vanessa Fernandes is every bit as big a part of its success. Lee has been out of action much of this last year, but her team, led by Fernandes, has kept the momentum going at the year-old Hackney restaurant known for ‘Malaysian heat and juicy wines’. It speaks to the cohesiveness and commitment of the entire Mambow team that several of its rave reviews (including one from Tom Parker-Bowles in The Mail of Sunday) both appeared when Lee wasn’t at the pass herself. Mambow is in good hands with Fernandes.
Louise Lateur
Managing Director, e5 Bakehouse
Louise Lateur is described as “a true example of uncompromising, compassionate leadership”. Whilst e5’s founder Ben Mackinnon concentrates on Fellows Farm, the company’s off-grid 70-acre organic farm in Suffolk, managing director Lateur oversees the two East London cafés and bakeries, e5 Bakehouse and Poplar Bakehouse. There are one hundred staff between the two sites, all paid the London Living Wage or more. Some have been with e5 for nearly ten years. e5 is ever-evolving, hosting events, bake sales, tastings, classes, and, since 2013, running a refugee training programme. Its community is at its heart. “She’s well loved by staff but the wider industry needs to know how dedicated she is.”
Anna Sebastian
Founder, Anna Sebastian Hospitality and Celebrate Her
Luxury hospitality consultant Anna Sebastian is a “shining light in the bar industry” who has managed some world-famous bars including Artesian at The Langham, London. She also sits on the committee of the non-profit Tales of the Cocktail Foundation and is a volunteer for homelessness charity Under One Sky. She’s nominated above all for Celebrate Her, a virtual community of women working in the bar industry across the world. Celebrate Her held its first in-person networking event this year, and now has more than 400 members. “Anna moderates and curates these platforms meticulously and fairly.”
Jacqueline McKinson
Owner and Head Baker, Aries Bakehouse
Jacqueline McKinson is a self-taught baker of Jamaican heritage from Brixton. Her bakery Aries Bakehouse, established in 2019, stands on the site of her mother’s old sweet shop. Still a key destination, then, for South London’s sweet of tooth. McKinson, who started baking cakes at her kitchen table in 2001, puts her own spin on the French classics; think Marmite XO and cheddar pain suisse, red velvet croissants, and ackee and saltfish Danish, inspired by her mother. Her focus is on the community both inside and outside her bakery. “She is always imparting her knowledge to staff, taking time to share, encourage and hone skills,” says a nominator. “She will always go above and beyond for her staff and customers.”
Desiree Chantarasak
Co-owner and Wine Director, AngloThai
A graphic designer by profession, Desiree Chantarasak got her first hospitality job – a job in a Clapham wine bar – when she was dating her now-husband John. He was working all hours at Som Saa’s Climpson’s Arch pop-up, so she got stuck into her WSET courses. She was instantly hooked. She’s now a fully fledged restaurateur, in charge of front of house and wine training at AngloThai, the restaurant she and John opened in Marylebone with MJMK in late 2024. It’s been five years plus in the making with pop-ups, supper clubs, residencies and two young children along the way.
Kyu Jeong Jeon
Chef and Owner, Bokman and Dongnae
Kyu Jeong Jeon and her husband Duncan Robertson were voted ‘Chefs to Watch’ in the 2025 Good Food Guide Awards. The award reflects the strides they’ve made in Bristol, beginning with Bokman, a tongdak (rotisserie chicken) restaurant in Stokes Croft in 2019, and their second restaurant, Dongnae which opened in Redland, in 2024. After training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and a stage at Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athénée, Jeong Jeon moved to L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, where she met Robertson. They spent a few years in Seoul before Bristol beckoned. The FT’s Tim Hayward called Dongnae “different, gently inspiring, flat-out delicious”.
Honey Spencer
Co-founder, Sune; Head Sommelier, Eurostar
Sommelier and restaurateur Honey Spencer has dedicated her working life to “understanding the beguiling, remarkable, and untamed” grape. Her debut book Natural Wine, No Drama, subtitled “an unpretentious guide”, was critically well received on publication this year, as was her first restaurant, Sune in Hackney, which she launched in late 2024 with her husband Charlie Sims. Spencer has worked in some great wine bars and restaurants, Sager and Wilde and the Studio Paskin collection among them, and now Eurostar travellers can discover her favourite wines, as she’s the nose behind the service’s onboard list.
Amelia Christie-Miller
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bold Bean Co
Amelia Christie-Miller is one of the leading lights of the “leguminati”, the unofficial global network of bean lovers, eaters, and growers spearheading the current “bean-naissance”. Quirky neologisms aside, beans are a serious business for Christie-Miller who, since founding Bold Bean Co in 2021, has been disseminating the timely message that not only are legumes nutritious, delicious and affordable, they also play a key role in soil health. Jars of her beans can now be found on the shelves of retailers such as Waitrose and Booths and on the menus of restaurants and cafés like Wild by Tart and Pophams. An unexpected turn of event for one who would not go near a baked bean as a child.
Namai Bishop
Chief Operating Officer, Inclucare; Founder, LuxePrivé
Namai Bishop is a dual jurisdiction lawyer with her own travel consultancy, but it is for her work as Chief Operating Officer at luxury travel and hospitality company Inclucare, founded in 2022, that she is nominated. Inclucare helps businesses, in the luxury sector in particular, reach and better serve guests with physical and sensory needs and visible and non-visible disabilities. It’s the opposite of box-ticking compliance; it’s an overdue shift of focus from accessibility to inclusivity. Hospitality at its hospitable best. Bishop also encourages inclusivity in F&B experiences through her no and lo sommelier service, Zowmelier.
Natasha Ndlovu
Restaurant Manager, The Devonshire
Ndlovu has been with The Devonshire in Soho since its opening in 2024. She first worked with The Devonshire’s landlord Oisín Rogers at The Guinea Grill, starting as a waitress in 2020. At The Devonshire, Ndlovu started as dining room supervisor and was quickly promoted to restaurant manager. As the pub has grown, so has its front of house team, which now numbers over 90 people. Recognizing the importance of team wellbeing in such a busy environment – there’s no such thing as a quiet day at The Devonshire – Ndlovu was appointed Wellbeing Officer to support staff with any concerns or challenges in work or their lives outside. She “ensures every team member feels valued, heard, and empowered to thrive both professionally and personally.”
Hannah Drye
Owner and Head Chef, Dough Hands
Pizza is a big trend, with New Haven, New York, Detroit, and London-style pizzas popping up at residencies across the capital and beyond. Hannah Drye’s Dough Hands is one of the key players; Time Out declared hers the “best pizza in London”. Drye’s London pies, crispy of base and bold of flavour, enjoy a cult following. You can find them at The Spurstowe Arms in Hackney and, since February 2025, at The Old Nun’s Head in Nunhead. Drye spent five years at Pizza Face in Brighton after university, and cut short a career in advertising to establish Dough Hands in 2020. “She has been a real breath of fresh air in the food scene, especially in the pizza industry which is classically very male dominated.”
Sarah Gurung
Founder, Yaki Yeti Yak and YYY Foundation
Sarah Gurung put everything she had, financially and emotionally, into the opening of Yak Yeti Yak, her traditional Nepalese restaurant in Bath, in 2004. Two decades later, with Nepalese cuisine really gaining traction in the UK, Yak Yeti Yak has a large loyal clientele for its momos, curries, and pakoras. In 2015, in response to the devastating earthquake in Nepal, Gurung launched the YYY Foundation to advance education and relieve poverty in Nepal. In 2024, she raised the funds for washable menstruation kits for 1500 girls and for IT training and computer suites in two schools in remote Nepal.
Cressida Lawlor
Co-founder and General Manager, Ego Death
2024 was a huge year for Cressida Lawlor. August saw the release of The Quest for Queer, her docuseries about the experiences of LGBTQ+ bartenders across the UK, a two-year-long project in partnership with Monkey Shoulder. Then in November, she co-founded Ego Death, a bourbon-focused, NYC-style speakeasy in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and one of the city’s most talked about launches of the year. She is committed to creating safe spaces for all staff and customers. “This goes beyond individual bars to the wider community,” says a nominator.
Sunaina Sethi
Co-founder and Chief People Officer, JKS Restaurants
Sunaina Sethi left behind a career in finance to co-found JKS Restaurants with her brothers Karam and Jyotin in 2008. In her role as chief people officer, she now supports the teams working across 25 London restaurants including Gymkhana, BAO, and Hoppers. This dovetails neatly with her passion for wine; having completed her WSET Diploma in 2017, this “strong advocate for education” established JKS Restaurants as an approved WSET programme provider and she herself continues to deliver WSET training. Over the last year, she has implemented the company’s new EDI policy and training, and introduced enhanced parent and carer leave. JKS was among the Sunday Times Best 100 Places to Work 2024. Sethi has also launched the “JKS Presents” series of panel talks covering subjects such as mental health and female leadership.
Poppy O’Toole
Chef and Campaigner
Chef and influencer Poppy O’Toole was best known as @poppycooks until she, Dara Klein and Sally Abé co-signed the open letter condemning sexism in the industry. Turns out, Poppy campaigns too. O’Toole, who hails from the Midlands, worked in professional kitchens including Purnell’s and The Wilderness in Birmingham and the AllBright club in London, before the pandemic hit in March 2020. At a loose end, she began creating content on TikTok and went viral with her McDonald’s-style hash brown recipe. She’s now got nearly five million followers and is the internet’s reigning potato queen. Her fourth cookbook The Potato Book came out in February 2025.
Clare Isaacs
Founder, Sprout Projects
Clare Isaacs spent a decade in the music industry before moving into food events. The fresh outlook she brought from music translated into festivals, the likes of which the food world had never seen before. Isaacs did a five-year stint overseeing the food programme at Wilderness, and brought Meatopia from New York to London. She went on to programme the celebrity chef line-up for Kitchen on the Edge of the World, a culinary escape in the north of Norway, with Valentine Warner. Her latest project, again with Warner, is Kitchen in the Wild, a programme of retreats in Kenya. The first, with chefs Santiago Lastra and Jackson Boxer, takes place in October 2025. Culinary tourism is booming and Isaac, once again, leads the way.
Jade Johnston
Operations Director, Lyla, Tipo, Noto, Aizle
Stuart Ralston, as chef and owner, gets the glory at Aizle, Noto, Tipo and Lyla, his four restaurants in Edinburgh. However, he’s the first to credit his operations director Jade Johnston, who this year celebrates ten years at the company, for the part she’s played in its success. What customers don’t see but almost certainly do feel, is the effort she puts in to make the entire restaurant group a positive working environment. She’s made changes to staff well-being, to the work-to-rest ratio and the working environment that have driven staff retention and helped staff progress. Lyla, which opened in late 2024, is declared ‘Exceptional’ by the Good Food Guide.
Kimberley Coke
Head of Communications and Partnerships, StreetSmart
Christmas would not be Christmas without StreetSmart’s annual £1 on bills campaign which raises over £1 million a year for homelessness charities. Their work may ramp up over the festive season but it’s a year-round endeavour for the charity, including for Kimberly Coke, the charity’s head of communications and partnerships. Alongside running her own concierge business The Restaurant VA – Coke was at private concierge Ten Group for over a decade – Coke works tirelessly to raise StreetSmart’s profile. A collaboration with TopJaw for the 2024 campaign can’t have hurt. Since its launch in 1998, StreetSmart has raised over £13m via more than 600 restaurants in more than 20 UK cities.
Dara Klein
Chef owner, Tiella
Dara Klein first made her name with Tiella, her residency at the Compton Arms in Islington in 2024. She made it again when she joined Sally Abé and Poppy O’Toole in writing an open letter to the restaurant industry calling for change. Klein, who was born in Italy and raised in New Zealand, was born into restaurants; her mother ran Maria Pia’s, a popular Italian restaurant in Wellington. Klein resisted her destiny for a while, trying out various art, media, tech and marketing roles, before starting a pop-up with her mother and finding herself in the kitchen. She moved to London in 2018 and worked at Rubedo, Brawn, and Sager + Wilde before going it alone with Tiella. She’s now working on her first cookbook.
Hatty Cary
Food & Drink Studio Producer, Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum’s is much, much more than somewhere one goes to pick up a jar of marmalade or a tin of leaf tea. The storied department store on Piccadilly is a hive of gastronomic activity with the whole third floor dedicated to a Food & Drink Studio, a “playground of delicious discovery”. Former marketing and communications consultant Hatty Cary programmes all the demos, masterclasses, panel talks, and supper clubs that take place there. She looks beyond the famous names to chefs, experts, producers and growers that can really bring something new to the space. She makes the 318-year-old institution feel relevant. So far in 2025, she’s invited in Nadiya Hussain for a Ramadan supper club and Dr Saliha Mahmood Ahmed to talk gut health.
Emily Syphas
Founder, Sober and Social
“And” is the operative word for Emily Syphas, whose brand Sober and Social advocates not for sobriety alone but for sobriety in the context of a happy, healthy social life. The former head of nightlife at Quintessentially-turned life coach hasn’t stopped going out since she set up Sober and Social in 2020; quite the opposite, she can now be found hosting parties, events and workshops for her community, while partnering with alcohol-free spirits brands such as Seedlip and Lyre’s. As a high-profile sober influencer, she is not afraid to challenge the status quo.
Zoë Paskin
Co-founder and Managing Director, Studio Paskin
It’s thirty years since seminal nightclub The End – “the club that changed London” according to DJ Mag – opened. That’s where brother-and-sister duo Zoë and Layo Paskin made their start in nightlife and hospitality, but it wasn’t until 2014 that they pivoted into restaurants, with the opening of The Palomar. Their mission statement at Studio Paskin is to create places that they want to go to. This approach has resulted in an eclectic portfolio which includes a pub, The Blue Posts in Soho; a wine bar, The Mulwray; a chef’s counter, Evelyn’s Table; and a small group of Middle Eastern restaurants, The Barbary, the new flagship of which opened in Notting Hill in 2024.
Martina Larnach
Head of Wine, Super8 Restaurants
Martina Larnach’s wine list at Mountain cleaned up at the UK Star Wine List awards 2024, winning Best Newcomer, Best Long Wine List, and the Grand Prix. Larnach, a history of art graduate from the Czech Republic who worked at Hawksmoor before moving to Brat, works collaboratively with Tomos Parry; their joint efforts saw Mountain win The Good Food Guide’s Best New Restaurant 2024. Larnach champions the work of women in wine, including her own colleagues as well as the female winemakers she lists at Mountain and Brat. She’s praised for her strong business acumen; wine sales have grown 38% across Super 8 sites.
Monika Linton
Founder, Brindisa
Time to raise a copa of chilled fino to Monika Linton, the visionary founder of Brindisa, the Spanish food importers responsible for discovering Perello olives at the Boqueria in Barcelona (and plenty more besides). Linton started Brindisa in 1988, convinced it was high time the UK was introduced to the best Spanish ingredients. Before long she was supplying the likes of Sally Clarke and Mark Hix. In 2004, she opened the first Tapas Brindisa at Borough Market, its kitchen (headed by a certain José Pizarro, who’s since launched his own Spanish restaurant group). Brindisa now has six sites in London. Simply put: “We all eat better tapas because of the birth of Brindisa.”
Jenny Lau
Writer and Community Organiser
Jenny Lau’s book An A-Z of Chinese Food, which came out in January this year, has been described by one reviewer as “an act of resistance and a celebration of food and community”. Lau, a writer, event curator, and community organiser, is the founder of Celestial Peach, a platform for telling stories about Chinese diaspora food, people, and communities. She’s been curating food events for the UK ESEA (East and Southeast Asian) community, and cooks twice a week at the East and Southeast Asian Community Centre and Club in Dalston. “She has the rare ability to dissect unwieldy matters of identity, race, and culture with the lightness of touch that all serious topics need,” notes one nominator.
Slutty Cheff
Chef and Writer
Chef and writer Slutty Cheff made her name and her social media following for her on the nose take down of Thomas Straker’s ill-advised all-white, all-male “Chef Team Assembled” Instagram post in 2023. No flash in the pan, she’s shown she’s a creative force to be reckoned with. Her debut book Tart: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef, which comes out in July 2025, has already been optioned by Working Title Films. And, in addition to a fortnightly column for Vogue, she has produced her own steamy mag Hot Fat, and collaborated on content and events with artists, actors, brands, and film-makers. An irreverent and much needed voice.
You can also view and download our Women of the Year 2025 booklet here.
A note from Bibendum Wine
Bibendum Wine is honoured to be the headline sponsor of CODE Hospitality’s Women of the Year for the third consecutive year. After two incredibly successful campaigns, we have seen firsthand the impact this initiative has in recognising the female leaders in the hospitality industry. Each year, we are amazed by the calibre of nominations, and this year was no exception. This year’s list highlights the powerful impact women are making in the hospitality industry and celebrates the breadth of talent they bring to it.
As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we acknowledge the gender gap that persists in the industry and are actively working toward being part of the solution. We celebrate the women who are driving change. Through our sponsorship of this campaign, we seek to honour women in hospitality with the hope of contributing to a more inclusive future.
As a premium wine specialist, Bibendum has stood at the forefront of the wine industry for the past 40 years, and we continue to pave the way today. As an on-trade specialist, we work with a huge range of customers, from world-famous restaurants to cocktail bars and pub groups. We want to shake up the status quo by partnering with mindful producers and pursuing a positive impact on the planet and our communities.
We work with over 280 of the world’s most talented winemakers, and in addition to our core range, we also offer an ever-evolving selection of fine wines from across the globe.
The judges
Mandy Yin, founder, Sambal Shiok
Robbie Bargh, founder, Gorgeous Group
Jimi Famurewa, restaurant critic and writer
Terri Mercieca, founder, Happy Endings
Valeria Rodriguez, director of fine wine, Bibendum
Adam Hyman, founder, Knife & Fork Media
Hilary Armstrong, content editor, CODE Hospitality
Women of the Year Booklet
You can download our Women of the Year booklet here