About
After being flung into the culinary limelight as a semi-finalist on Masterchef, Orlando Murrin edited Woman and Home, BBC Good Food and founded Olive magazine; then he switched track to become a chef-hotelier in SW France and Somerset.
He has written six cookbooks and received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Guild of Food Writers, its highest accolade. A popular guest on TV and radio, and at food and literary festivals, he is also a regular podcaster and podcast host.
From his grandfather, a Met detective who rose to become a crack MI5 interrogator, he inherited a fascination with crime and mystery. He lives in domestic bliss in Exeter, Devon, and has written two culinary crime novels: Knife Skills For Beginners (shortlisted for the McDermid Debut and Crime Fiction Lover Debut Awards) and Murder Below Deck.
If you're interested in a little more detail Like many writers, I've had a varied career. After reading English at Cambridge, my first job was editing the classical music pages at BBC Radio Times; this was a good fit as in those days I had a remarkable memory for spelling the names of obscure composers and opus numbers.     Unfortunately this didn't earn me enough to live in style, so I moonlighted (moonlit?) as a restaurant pianist in hotels, clubs and bars. Despite the occasional longueurs – playing for hours with no one listening – I enjoyed some success and ended up with a residency at Kettner's in Soho – in its glory days – which I held down for over twenty years.     Meanwhile, my magazine career slowly progressed. For three years I worked at Living Magazine, edited by the indomitable Dena Vane, then for the launch of Country Homes and Interiors. After two years out working as copywriter at Grey Advertising, I enjoyed a glorious spell at Cosmopolitan, then became the first male editor in the 70-year history of Woman & Home. In 1992 I was catapulted into the culinary limelight when I won through to the semi-finals of Masterchef, never having seen the programme. Subsequently I became editor of BBC Good Food and the recipe columnist for the Daily Express. Seven years and two thousand recipes later, I jumped ship to open Le Manoir de Raynaudes, a gastro-B&B in South West France, later returning to the UK to create Langford Fivehead, a boutique hotel in an Elizabethan manor house in Somerset. Having survived the angst of professional cheffing, I now live as quietly as possible in Exeter, South West England, where I where I write for Waitrose Weekend, the Telegraph and Good Food magazine. I recently finished a five-year term as President of the Guild of Food Writers. Why crime? I come from a family of law enforcers. My grandfather, William Skardon, was the crack MI5 interrogator who ran Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) to ground in Germany in 1946, secured the confession of Klaus Fuchs and broke the Portland Spy Ring. After his flight to Russia, Philby commented 'the only man I feared was Skardon'. My great-uncle was Macmillan's bodyguard. My grandfather was obviously forbidden from speaking about his MI5 career, but took delight in reminiscing about his time as a detective in pre-war Soho, and the tiny slips made by murderers which led to many a successful conviction. What else do you spend your time doing? I play the piano – for my own amusement – and I’m an expert on Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950).