Short facts about Leila

Leila first saw the light of day on June 21st 1975. She was born at Allmänna Maternity Hospital in Stockholm on Midsummer Eve. She grew up in Solna and Kummelnäs in the inner Stockholm archipelago. Early on she knew that it was the art of cooking that she wanted to devote herself to so restaurant school was the obvious choice for her. After that she added the experiences of working in several famous restaurants in Sweden and New York.

Wärdshuset Ulla Winbladh, Fjäderholmarnas krog, Aquavit i New York, Operakällaren, Fredsgatan 12 and Restaurangen are some of the restaurants where she has been seen, stirring the pots.

Leila has also worked as a food stylist for ads and commercials, both in Swedish and foreign food magazines. In 2004, she started to cooperate with TV4 (Swedish Channel 4), and created a completely new type of food television. Instead of intricate fancy restaurant recipes, Leila delivered dinner tips for stressed out families with small children. Since then, she has made a number of food programmes of her own and in her own name. They have delivered high ratings and even broken rating records.

She is the author of five cook books; Leilas middagstips, Leilas guldkant på vardagen, A Piece of Cake, One More Slice and Hello cupcake! The books have been sold in record numbers and they have also been published in a number of European countries including Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Holland. The fourth book, One More Slice, was published in April 2010 by the recently started publishing company Walter and Books. One More Slice follows on from where Leila´s earlier baking bible A Piece of Cake ends. The new book immediately rose to the top of the sales charts and has sold over 50,000 copies after only six months. In the spring of 2011, it was published in Great Britain, Germany, France, Denmark and Finland. In Sweden the book has been awarded the Swedish publishing award.
In the beginning of October 2011 Leilas fifth book, Hello cupcake! was released in Sweden. The book will be published abroad in the spring of 2012.  

Leila has also had time to become a mother. In May 2009, Walter, who enjoys life and mum´s food, was born.

Over the years, Leila’s books, and programmes have received a number of awards including Female Cook of the Year in 1999, Channel 4 Cook of the Year in 2004, several nominations in Gourmand Cookbook Award, prize winner in Swedish meal literature of the year in 2008 and the silver medal in 2009 from the Swedish Gastronomic Academy.

In the spring of 2010, Leila started her own publishing company, Walter and Books, where she publishes her own books and also aims to publish other authors.