Nigel Slater was born on 9 April 1956 in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, to Cyril “Tony” Slater, a factory owner, and Kathleen Slater, a homemaker. His mother died of asthma when he was young, and his father remarried Dorothy Perrens; Slater later wrote candidly about this period of his childhood in his memoir Toast.

He began cooking in restaurants from age 16 before moving into food writing, and became a household name through Observer Magazine columns and a long run of bestselling cookbooks.

He has presented several BBC cookery series, including Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking (BBC One/BBC Two) and Eating Together (BBC One), exploring flavour pairings and everyday seasonal cooking.

Slater is openly gay and has generally kept his private life low-key; he has lived in Highbury, north London, for decades and has spoken about a second home in Helsinki.