About London Gastronomy Seminars

Rachel Edwards-Stuart

Rachel graduated from Cambridge in 2003 with a degree in Biochemistry, before moving to Paris to work with Dr Hervé This at the College du France. While in Paris, Rachel started to become interested in developing and strengthening the collaboration between chefs and scientists, with a particular interest in chef training. She subsequently moved to Nottingham University, to embark on a PhD titled “Creating Innovative Texture and Flavour experiences”, which was sponsored by Heston Blumenthal and supervised by the Food Flavour Group. Rachel then spent a few years at Sainsburys as a product technologist before taking on the role at Westminster Kingsway College of running the new Culinary Science department, overseeing research projects and teaching science to chefs. She also runs her own business, which offers consultancy and bespoke sessions for private and corporate clients on food and flavour science (www.racheledwardsstuart.com).

Bronwen Percival

Bronwen is the cheese buyer for Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. In addition to working with cheesemakers and the company’s maturation team to select and optimise the quality of the cheese they sell, she works to mobilise collaboration between cheesemakers and the scientific community. In 2012 Bronwen instigated a biennial conference on the Science of Artisan Cheese, bringing together scientists, cheesemakers, cheese maturers, and public health officials from three continents. In early 2014, she spent two months in the Dutton Lab at Harvard University studying the role of marine-associated Proteobacteria on cheese rinds. Along with Dr. Benjamin Wolfe, a microbiologist from Tufts University, she founded MicrobialFoods.org, a website dedicated to making cutting-edge science on artisan fermented foods available to the general public. Bronwen is a member of the UK Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association Technical Committee and sat on the editorial board of the Oxford Companion to Cheese. She coordinated an English translation of the leading French textbook on raw milk microbiology, having secured the funding through a successful Kickstarter campaign featured by NPR and Modern Farmer.

Francis Percival

Francis is food editor and columnist for The World of Fine Wine. His work has been shortlisted at the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards for the last four years, winning Best International Wine Columnist in 2013. Apart from The World of Fine Wine, his work has appeared in Decanter and the Financial Times in the UK and Culture, Saveur, and Gourmet in the US. Besides writing, Francis also teaches wine and cheese classes for Neal’s Yard Dairy. His “fun and engaging” classes have been enthusiastically reviewed by the London Evening Standard and have formed the basis for a Masterclass feature in the Financial Times.