Zohreh Shahrabi

Zohreh was born and raised in Tehran. She studied art in Iran, and moved to the UK to pursue a degree in Design at Coventry University. She became interested in cooking because she loves to eat (“I’m very greedy!”), and enjoyed it so much that she started a small food business selling Iranian sandwiches. Zohreh sees cooking as a kind of art, where the pan becomes your canvas and the colours of the dish are added with spices and herbs. She would like to open her own Iranian coffee shop in London, where she is now living with her son. She loves that at Mazí Mas different chefs, each from a different country, with a different language and different cultures, come together to cook food that can’t be found anywhere else.

Azeb Woldemichael

Azeb was born and raised in Addis Ababa, and lived in Italy for 17 years before moving to the UK. She has a diploma in Accounting but her passion has always been food, having grown up in a big family where food brought everyone together. Azeb worked in both Ethiopian and Italian restaurants whilst living in Italy, and her lasagne is as exceptional as her doro wet. Her life changed in 2000 with the birth of her son Jonathan, whose education eventually led her to London. Azeb loves discovering new cuisines and trying recipes she has learned from her fellow Mazí Mas chefs, and hopes to open an Ethiopian coffee shop in London.

Ezgi Koyupinar

Ezgi is half Syrian and half Turkish. She was born in a city where the food was dominated by Arabic culture - couscous, chilli, sun dried tomato and pepper paste, kebab, yogurt and tahini featured daily.

She sees a strong connection between food and culture. Her Turkish mother taught her how to be a tidy, organised cook and her father gave the skills to reproduce rustic Syrian flavours. For Ezgi, cooking is about community, helping each other and sharing food. These are the values she is now passing on to her two children.

Aissatou Diagne

Aissatou was born in a village called Meckhé and grew up in Dakar. She planned to study law at university but instead joined her husband in the UK, where he had gotten a teaching job. Aissatou learned to cook Senegalese food from her mother and sister at a very young age; but it was here in London, when she found herself cooking every day for her family, that she decided to make it her profession. What most excites Aissatou about food is that it helps people get to know about her country. Her dream is to have a restaurant in Senegal. “For me, Mazí Mas is a place where happiness, lovely women and authentic dishes all combine to create a successful business.”

Marlith Tenazoa Del Aguila

Marlith was born and raised in the Peruvian Amazon. She was a successful food entrepreneur in Peru for many years before emigrating to Spain and finally moving to London in 2012. She has always enjoyed cooking and sees food as a reason to bring together family and friends. Working with Mazí Mas has helped her access the London food scene and launch her catering business, Cocina Peru. She values being part of the Mazí Mas team, and enjoys having the opportunity to learn and to share what has been collectively achieved.

Susana Urteaga

Susana grew up in Iquitos, in the middle of the Peruvian rainforest. At age twenty-two she emigrated to Spain, where she lived for twenty years. She and her husband then moved to Orlando, Florida, where she worked as a chef at a Jewish-American community centre. She was hired specifically because she cooked Peruvian food, which everyone loved.

Susana has been living in London since 2012. She has raised three sons as well as her nephew, and they have all followed her to London. She enjoys London because of its ethnic diversity and also because she likes that English people are very polite!

Nikandre Kopcke

Nikandre was born in Berlin to a German father and Greek-American mother, and raised in New York City. She grew up speaking four languages and attended the United Nations International School (UNIS), which instilled an early love of multicultural diversity, and commitment to UN values of international peace, justice, and respect for human rights. She thinks Mazí Mas probably started on October 24^th, 1993: her first UN Day, celebrated annually at UNIS. There were school-wide assemblies and performances, and the whole Junior School paraded through the school outfitted in national dress; but the most exciting part was the stunning array of food prepared by the Junior School mothers, who came from all over the world. Nikandre went on to study Sociology at Edinburgh University, pulled by her European roots and family in Greece, and moved to London to pursue an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the LSE’s Gender Institute in 2010. There she immersed herself in the study of women, migration, and care work, and came into her own as an unapologetic feminist killjoy. Looking to move into food, her lifelong passion, she interned for FoodCycle and social enterprise Rubies in the Rubble, volunteered as a cook for the Hackney Migrant Centre, and began working with eco chef Tom Hunt of Forgotten Feast. Mazí Mas is the product of these experiences as well as a zealous determination to stop talking about feminism and start doing it. She is proud to lead a feminist business and honoured to work with so many truly talented women.

Mara Klein

Mara joined the team in April 2014. She studied International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, and holds an MA in Cultural Mediation and Documentation from Lyon University, France. Working with Roma women in France, she became acutely aware of the challenges that migrants face in Western Europe and the socio-economic, political and cultural barriers imposed particularly on women. Mara believes that, just like art, food is a marker of social injustice, and would like to help turn it from a means of oppression to one of empowerment. Very concretely, it also is one of the most delicious ways of sharing culture, providing us with roots wherever we go.

Roberta Siao

Roberta was born in Rio de Janeiro. She has loved cooking since she was a child, when she used to conduct barbeque experiments in the backyard of her family home over a couple of bricks and a wood fire. She moved to London after meeting her husband, leaving behind a job at the Central Bank of Brazil. She has a son, Thomas, who now accompanies her on her culinary explorations of London’s markets, cafés, and food festivals. She believes that food is about nourishing, caring, and sharing, and is fundamental to a life well-lived. “Together, sharing food and love, life becomes more meaningful. That’s what Mazí Mas is all about for me.”

Sadhbh O’Sullivan

Sadhbh joined Mazí Mas in October 2014. A part-time cake consultant and full-time feminist, she has a BA from Cambridge in English and now puts all her reading about postcolonial and feminist theory and practice to use in activism and social enterprise. She wants to learn more about social welfare and migration in the UK, and is currently working on an independent feminist glossy magazine called Ladybeard. She is also using this opportunity to learn how to do more than over-boil an egg.

Anna Dowrick

Rachel Harrison

Rachel joined the team in March 2015 to manage the growing number of weddings and events Mazi Mas caters for. Having worked in the events industry for the past five years and more recently turning her hand to wedding planning, Rachel was attracted to Mazi Mas by its strong feminist principles and of course the delicious cooking, food being a big part of her life!

Louise Ashwell

Louise joined Mazí Mas in October 2014. She has been interested for a long time in grassroots activist groups within the wider feminist movement. Mazí Mas attracted her for its uniquely delicious combination of social enterprise with feminist principles. Using her experience in journalism and communications, she brings the aims of Mazí Mas and its chefs’ unique stories to the widest possible audience. Get in touch with Louise if you’re a print journalist or writer interested in writing about or promoting Mazí Mas.

Carolin Goethel

Carolin joined Mazí Mas in February 2014. Whilst studying towards an MA in Postcolonial Studies she explored how the concept of ‘indigeneity’ is used to justify xenophobic discourses. Her experience as a detention centre visitor enraged her about the inhumane UK immigration system and made her want to work for a more equal society and economy. She sees food as a very useful tool and indicator for doing so and is currently learning a lot about the food system at her job with the Food Assembly. She is responsible for recruitment and outreach at Mazí Mas.

Josh Falconer-Roberts

Joshua joined the team in October 2014. After volunteering with a number of social enterprises and self-sustaining communities whilst travelling in Brazil, he decided it was time to explore how organisations motivated by social change, rather than profit, could improve the lives of people in London and the UK. Joshua is currently a fellow of the Year Here Social Innovation Programme but at Mazí Mas he is responsible for measuring, reporting and advising on the social impact that Mazí Mas creates. Joshua sees food as a window into different cultures and the heart, and always experiments with new tastes wherever he goes.

Aditi Shah

Aditi joined the team in July 2015. She has recently graduated from the University of Bath with a BSc in Business Administration. Her love for all things food and social justice stemmed from her 6 month stint working in San Francisco for La Cocina, where she was helping immigrant women from low income communities launch food businesses. Blown away by how food gave these women a new lifeline, she is excited to explore how food is being used as a tool to address inequality closer to home, here in London.