Fuchsia Dunlop (OHS 1987) is a highly successful memoirist, food writer and cook who specialises in Chinese cuisine. Having studies at Cambridge and SOAS after leaving OHS, Fuchsia first became interested in China through a sub-editing job at the BBC, which led her to take evening classes in Mandarin, and eventually to win a British Council scholarship to study for a year in the Sichuanese capital, Chengdu. She speaks, reads and writes Chinese.
Since then, Fuchsia has written many books and award-winning journalism journalist on cooking and restaurants in China for, among others, Gourmet, Saveur and The Financial Times. She is the author of the award-winning Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China, Every Grain of Rice, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, and two other critically-acclaimed Chinese cookery books, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, and Sichuan Cookery.
Fuchsia has won four James Beard awards in the US, including International Cookbook (2014) for Every Grain of Rice and three for articles published in Lucky Peach and The Financial Times. She has been nominated and shortlisted for four additional James Beard Awards. She was named ‘Food Journalist of the Year’ by the British Guild of Food Writers in 2006, and has also won Guild of Food Writers awards for three of her books. Her memoir, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper won the IACP Jane Grigson Award in the US, and the Guild of Food Writers’ Kate Whiteman Award for Food and Travel in the UK. Most recently, Land of Fish and Rice won the 2017 Andre Simon Food Book of the Year award.
She also serves as a consultant to the popular Barshu Sichuanese restaurant in London, and has consulted and taught Chinese cookery for companies including Williams Sonoma, Sharwoods and Marks and Spencer. Fuchsia has spoken and cooked at conferences and events in China, Barcelona, California, New York, Sydney and Singapore, and as part of the Transart festival in Bolzano, Italy.
She was described by The Sunday Telegraph as ‘The best writer in the West… on Chinese food.’
