Meet Sonja
- thelarde3
- Sep 11, 2015
- 2 min read
Sonja Edridge, business owner and founder of The Larder
Sonja returned to Cape Town in 2011, leaving London to start her own café, The Larder. When Block & Chisel approached Sonja to create a dedicated in-store café she was living in London, but made the immediate decision to return home.
Loving cafés with soul and places where you can feel right at home and be treated like an old friend, Sonja wanted to create a homely space – slippers and pantoffels are welcome, she says – offering the most delicious ingredients for your plate from local producers who are passionate about their products and what they do.
Proudly working with the seasons, changing the menu depending on what her carefully chosen farmers are harvesting and only using local and free-range, pasture-reared meats.The food is real and honest and made on site. And naturally, with good food comes good coffee, always. Sonja doesn't stop there: she can fill your freezer with homemade meals and treats, as well as offering a catering service.
Gradutating from London's Leith’s School of Food and Wine with merit, and after a summer's experience in Tuscany cooking in Castello di Montepò for Italian nobility, foodie elites and visitors from the Vatican, Sonja returned to London to enter the world of television.
Working on Channel 4’s Light Lunch and The Italian Kitchen with Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, she then helped to launch Delia Smith’s website, Delia Online. Next, she worked as a food editor for supermarket magazines such as Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer, after which she became a freelance food stylist, writer and recipe developer for numerous publications, cookbooks, television commercials and packaging shoots, as well as working with fabulous food photographers, authors and stylists from around the globe. Shooting regularly with Jonathan Lovekin, Nigel Slater’s partner in crime as well as David Loftus and becoming Jamie Oliver’s number one.
Although not her full-time vocation, Sonja has also made a career of creating very special private dinners, cooking for corporate events as well as close friends and family. Sonja has also worked with some of the biggest names in films and theatre as a private chef... Not naming any names there is a reason that her Larder-style eggs benedict is called The Johnny Depp.
