'How I became the Potato Queen'

Available for over a year

Poppy Cooks' culinary creations make millions drool on to their phones every day. Discover how Poppy O'Toole's career began in the kitchens of a Worcestershire care home, where she naturally served up mashed potatoes, finding immense gratification in residents' love of food. She then picked up roles at The Queen's Head pub in Stoke Prior, first in front-of-house before making her way in to the kitchen. Her duties included, naturally, peeling potatoes. The Bromsgrove chef then made her way through restaurants at the highest level of dining, working in Michelin-starred kitchens, not least Purnell's in Birmingham and serving up hedge fund managers and their clients food as a sous chef at posh London banks and members' clubs. As soon as lockdown hit, Poppy tells Nina Das Gupta how it all changed, as her husband convinced her to start posting videos on social media. People all over the world fell in love with her no-nonsense yet friendly approach to cooking. The video that changed everything was a simple recipe about steak and potatoes, prompting 25 days of potato recipes; the rest is history. She's picked up millions of followers across multiple platforms on social media, alongside TV appearances including Masterchef and Saturday Kitchen. Poppy is also a best-selling author several times over, having published her sixth cookbook, The Actually Delicious Batch Cookbook, in September 2026. Image credit: Poppy Cooks/Jessica Raphael