A blue plaque has been unveiled at the home of a woman who revolutionised cooking in post-war Britain.
Elizabeth David lived and worked at 24 Halsey Street in Chelsea , already a Grade II listed building, from 1947 until her death in 1992.
The English Heritage plaque was unveiled as the scheme celebrates its 150th anniversary . It is the first for a food writer and is in recognition of her impact in changing Britain’s taste forever.
She lived in her Chelsea address for 45 years and it was while there that she became one of the most influential cookery writers of the 20th century.
She was largely credited with introducing Mediterranean food into the UK, and according to English Heritage, David championed the use of new and exotic ingredients such as aubergines, olives and saffron.
Her books sold over a million copies worldwide, and Jill Norman, who was her editor at Penguin Books, said: “It is a very well deserved plaque, putting Elizabeth in place in terms of the quality of her writing, as well as what she changed in British food .”
Rosemary Hill, a member of the English Heritage Blue Plaques Panel, added: “Elizabeth David was taken seriously in a way that no English food writer had been before. She turned the traditional image of Mrs Beeton into a much more glamorous, cosmopolitan idea of what it meant to cook.”
A property in nearby Paultons Square received a double blue plaque in April, and in May some famous fans of Tommy Cooper impersonated the legendary comedian and magician at the unveiling of a blue plaque at his Chiswick home.
