Bottles and burritos: Wahaca founder Thomasina Miers

Bringing up baby: Thomasina Miers and her daughter Tatiana
10 April 2012

Thomasina Miers has just gone back to work after seven months on maternity leave following the birth of her first child, Tatiana. The founder of Mexican street food chain Wahaca and former MasterChef winner explains why having her first baby at the age of 35 and taking time off to spend with her has been such a big deal. "All through my late twenties and early thirties my friends were having babies, but I missed out on the whole thing. It was a combination of reasons, but mostly working so hard. In fact when I first did Wahaca, I didn't see a single friend for a year," she says.

We are sitting in her Kensal Rise living room to discuss the joys and perils of combining work with motherhood when, after just a couple of minutes, there's the tiniest squawk from the baby-monitor and Miers jumps up apologetically.

"The most interesting thing is that before you have a child, you read about women juggling being a mother and having a career, but there's no way you can even begin to realise the impact until you've had your baby. The second I had Tatty, the guilt thing of 'Am I doing a good enough job?' started."

However, being a stay-at-home mum - as her own mother was - clearly won't do for Miers even though her husband, Mark Williams, whom she met six years ago, is a hedge fund manager and there's presumably no pressing need for her to earn an income.

Not only is she ambitious for Wahaca (plans include a pop-up street food restaurant on the South Bank this spring and finding more sites outside London), she also has another recipe book out in June - and hopes to launch a pig feeding scheme using food waste, which she says is much more efficient than composting.

"I'm not good at doing nothing, so being at home all the time would be totally destructive for me and for Tatty too. It's the same if I spend too much time on the internet - I start getting itchy. But if I go into the kitchen and make some soup I'll feel good again."

Miers spends as much time as she can in her own kitchen, where she and her husband have regular weekend bake-offs, and apart from a low period in her late teens and twenties, she says she's always been a "wholesome" eater. During her pregnancy she cheerfully tucked into unpasteurised cheese, steak tartare, sushi and even a raw oyster. "There's so little common sense these days, I do think we're so bombarded with what's good or bad for you," she says, briskly. "Thank god I like eating chocolate and drinking whisky though, otherwise I'd be very boring."

Ironically, it was eating a bowl of chilli relish in Mexico when she was five months pregnant that made her think she might have lost her baby. "I've got a cast iron stomach because I've spent so long travelling, but I was convinced I'd killed Tatty because she didn't kick for about 12 hours."

It's essential that she keeps trying out new flavours and recipes, although now that Wahaca employs 400 people and operates six restaurants, Miers no longer has to work shifts. The company, which she co-founded with business partner Mark Selby and three private investors, is run along youthful, egalitarian lines: "If someone drops a cup of coffee, whoever's nearest mops it up." It's a radically different approach from most male-run kitchens, she says. "You hear so many horror stories of how badly women are treated and the macho stuff that goes on but I didn't do any of that."

Miers's route into the professional kitchen was unusual. One of three children, she went to St Paul's Girls' School and was clearly marked out as the achiever in the family. But after she failed to get into Oxford, instead reading modern languages and economics at Edinburgh, she went into a depression. "I drank and ate a lot and didn't exercise. I felt unhappy," she says.

After unsuccessful stints in journalism and some modelling she went on an "inspirational" course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland.

Crucially, in 2005 she won MasterChef, which she still watches and says has become "very, very cheffy and professional". She went on to work for Skye Gyngell at Petersham Nurseries, has published several cookery books, presented two television series, and her smiling face now appears on Wahaca's salsa bottles, on sale in the restaurants.

As her own empire expands, she applauds the explosion of small restaurants and pop-ups opening in London as a result of the recession. Nor is she fazed by the surge in burrito bars and Latin American eateries. "I'm surprised there hasn't been more competition. We've been open for five years and I'd love to get some new ideas without the expense of having to fly to Mexico."

As it happens she's just off there on another of her regular street food sleuthing trips, along with 12 of her colleagues. But there's an extra passenger coming this time too - and that's Tatty.

Thomasina's five favourite places to eat in London:

*The River Café, Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, W6
For its Mrs Beeton Household Management approach to the kitchen.

*Bocca Di Lupo, 12 Archer Street, W1
For its livers, offal and earthy feeling.

*Copita, 26 D'Arblay Street, W1
For its delicious Spanish tapas.

*Spuntino, 61 Rupert Street, W1
For its deep-fried stuffed olives.

*The Dock Kitchen, Portobello Docks, 344-342 Ladbroke Grove, W10
My local.

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