Amber Francis on GBM and school food

Great British Menu gave Amber Francis a national platform and one year on, she is using it to push for change in school food.

The chef, who was crowned champion of champions in 2025, has spent the past 12 months balancing motherhood, maternity leave, public appearances and a growing national conversation around food education.

But if anything, Amber said becoming a parent has only strengthened her belief in the importance of how young people are introduced to ingredients, cooking and eating well.

Speaking to The Staff Canteen, Amber said: “It's definitely been a whirlwind. Having a baby changes everything completely and it really rearranges your priorities and how you spend your time, or what little time you have.

“It's really brought into sharp resolve how important food for young people is for me. It's always something that I'm very passionate about. I've always been involved in food and cooking for the community.

“Now having my own daughter, it's showing me even more so how important that is to me.”

Life after Great British Menu

Before moving into school food, Amber built more than a decade of experience in fine dining, including The Ritz London, The Dairy and joining Michelin Guide-listed restaurant Maene as head chef ahead of its opening.

In late 2023, she made an unconventional move, leaving fine dining to become head chef and senior food educator at Christ’s College Finchley, a secondary school in north London.

Since then, she has gone on to win Great British Menu’s highest accolade while still working in a school kitchen.

Asked whether winning the show had opened up more opportunities professionally, Amber said: “That is definitely very fair to say. It's enabled me to have more confidence in approaching opportunities that come my way.

“But in terms of pride in work and recognition and being able to talk about some of the community work that I've done, some of the charity work, representing a different sector within the hospitality industry, you can't put a price on that.”

For Amber, one of the most powerful parts of Great British Menu was the chance to show that success in food does not have to follow one narrow route.

She said: “I'm passionate about encouraging young chefs to sometimes think differently about their careers in food,

“Many young chefs are told there is one career path, one set route that you should go down and that's how you'll become successful.

“It's really wonderful to be able to show that there are so many different avenues that you can go down and so many different directions that a career in food can take.”

A future return to Great British Menu?

Amber said the latest series “definitely brought up some old memories” and added that it was “really lovely to see Jean Delport and Sally Abé back as mentors this year as well,” having competed alongside both chefs as fellow finalists in 2025.

Asked whether she would consider returning to the programme as a mentor herself, Amber said: “Absolutely. I'd probably be too kind in some regards, but I think it's all about constructive criticism, right?

“I received some pretty damning feedback in my experience on Great British Menu and it made me stronger as a chef.

“Ultimately, I'm very fortunate that it's got me to where I am now.

“I would absolutely love to be invited back to be a part of Great British Menu in any way. But we'll have to see what the producers say next time around.”

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Try Something New Day

Amber’s work in school food is now being taken further through Try Something New Day, a national food education project launched through charity Chefs in Schools.

The initiative is designed to get every school in the UK running weekly ingredient tastings during the school day, with a free toolkit for schools to use at breaktime, without needing classroom time or an external budget.

At Christ’s College Finchley, where Amber works as head chef and senior food educator, she has already been running the idea every Tuesday, taking a trolley into the school dining hall and offering students a new ingredient to try free of charge.

The aim is simple: to make trying something new feel normal, low-pressure and part of the school day.

Amber explained: “It's five seconds out of their day, but it's a big achievement in the long run.

“The aim is to encourage conversations around ingredients, from different types of tomato to lesser-known flavours like kohlrabi and pomelo.”

Discussing how the initiative has developed, Amber said: “It's been amazing. I got to speak on a local radio station about it, and it's had really, really good feedback.

“It's obviously come at a really pivotal time for school food, with the proposed new school food standards, which is very much needed.

“It's a really exciting time to be a part of that sphere.

“Try Something New Tuesdays is something that I'm really passionate about. It's a way that I found to combine my day-to-day running of the kitchen that I was working in, and also to continue that passion of food education that I had.”

The campaign is designed to be practical as well as ambitious. Amber budgets just a few pounds each week for a school of more than 1,000 pupils, putting aside money for two to three kilos of an ingredient.

Schools are encouraged to start with simple produce, such as cucumbers, apples or oranges, offering different varieties and encouraging students to talk about the differences. Students can also smell, touch or look at ingredients, rather than feeling pressured to eat them.

Amber Francis in her chef apron and on Great British Menu

School food at a pivotal moment

Amber’s work comes at a significant moment for school food in England.

The government is currently consulting on new School Food Standards, with the Department for Education saying the rules are being updated for the first time in more than a decade.

The proposed standards would apply to all food served in primary and secondary schools, including breakfast and lunch, with a focus on increasing fruit, vegetables and wholegrains, while reducing foods high in fat, salt and sugar.

Under the proposals, deep-fried foods would no longer be served, high-fat items such as pizza or sausage rolls would not be available every day, and fruit would replace sugary desserts for most of the week.

The standards would also support the wider rollout of free breakfast clubs, with a full enforcement system expected to be in place from September 2027.

For Amber, improving food for young people cannot simply be about changing standards on paper. It also needs investment, training and support for the teams delivering meals every day.

She said: “I'm really fortunate to be invited to some roundtables and some events within Parliament and with the Department of Education.

“The one thing that I've taken from those events is how on board everyone really is. Everyone wants change. Everyone wants to improve standards of food for young people.

“It's just how we go about doing that. I think the standards are a fantastic place to start.

“There obviously has to be support and funding and training that goes alongside that to help teams on the ground, because change is a hard thing to get going.

“But what this does show is that the government is wanting to release another, more modernised set of standards, so that the quality can be increased across the board, and that can only be a really positive thing.”