Recipe for success! TV chef Ainsley Harriott beams as he’s awarded an MBE by Prince Charles – before revealing he messaged his Ready Steady Cook successor Rylan Clark-Neal ‘keep it going’ on return of the show
- Ainsley Harriott, 62, awarded the MBE in the 2019 New Year’s honours list
- Hariott was honoured for services to broadcasting and to the culinary arts
- The TV chef is best known for presenting popular BBC daytime cooking shows
Celebrity chef , Ainsley Harriott was invested as a Member of the British Empire (MBE) by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace earlier today.
The 63-year-old chef, television presenter, and entertainer is best known from the popular daytime cooking shows ‘Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook’ and ‘Ready Steady Cook’ and his larger-than-life persona.
The star was honoured for services to broadcasting and to the culinary arts over a career spanning more than 30 years.
He also had warm words for the new host of a revitalised Ready Steady Cook that returned to Britain’s screens this week.
Ainsley Harriott shares a joke with Prince Charles as he receives his MBE
The star was honoured for services to broadcasting and to the culinary arts
The BBC show, Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook, ran between 1995 and 2000 and the cooking competition Ready Steady Cook between 2000 and 2010.
Harriott warmly wished his successor as host of the rebooted Ready Steady Cook well for the new series.
The chef said he sent a message to new presenter Rylan Clark-Neal telling him to ‘keep it going’, as the cooking programme returned to TV screens this week, a decade after it ended.
The long-time chef praised Clark-Neal’s ‘relaxed’ presenting style, but admitted he had not had a chance to see the new version in full yet.
Speaking after being made an MBE for his services to broadcasting and culinary arts, Harriott said he told Clark-Neal: ‘Well done, keep up the good work.’
‘I just said to Rylan ‘Keep it going’,’ he said.
‘As a presenter I like what he does, I think he engages with people. He’s very warm, he’s got a relaxed style, so I’m sure that’s going to work.’
He said the show, which sees contestants hand a random bag of ingredients to a chef to create something tasty, has a ‘good format’.
‘It’s showing people what they can do with some basic ingredients in a short space of time,’ he said.
Harriott described being recognised at Buckingham Palace on Thursday as ‘very special’.
Having made a career of trying to make cooking more accessible to people, he said food remains his passion.
Harriott beams whilst posing with his MBE outside Buckingham Palace earlier today
‘I think it’s kind of bringing food to people who perhaps a little bit shied away from it, (were) a little bit embarrassed about it,’ he said.
‘I think what I’ve tried to do over the years is to kind of open the door to say ‘It’s a meal, it’s OK, don’t panic, don’t get worked up about it’.’
The chef was intending to celebrate his royal honour by enjoying some ‘classic British fare’ with his children at the Wolseley in London.
Harriott initially thought he’d received a parking fine when the stamped envelope dropped through his door.
The chef said: ‘When I first got it I thought it was a parking ticket! It’s got the crest on it. When you see an official stamp you go: what is this?’
But Harriott also said receiving the MBE was a bittersweet moment as it made him think of his late mother, who died in 1993.
In January, he told Holly and Phil on the This Morning show: ‘She’d have been at church telling everybody.
‘She would have probably taken it from me! You know when you hear about families taking the Olympic gold medals.’
Harriott is one of the most recognisable culinary figures in Britain.