Patricia Llewellyn

Patricia Llewellyn was an award-winning British television producer. As Managing Director of the independent television production company Optomen, she was best known for bringing her passion for food and drink as a producer of numerous cooking shows such as "The Naked Chef" and "Kitchen Nightmares." Llewellyn started off as the producer of "Two Fat Ladies" (BBC Two 1996-99), the popular cooking series that featured the affable celebrity chefs Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson. When Paterson passed away in 1999, Llewellyn moved on to another cooking show with young and talented chef and restaurateur, Jamie Oliver, for his first television series "The Naked Chef" (BBC Two 1998-99). Llewellyn devised the show's eye-grabbing title, which referred to Oliver's simplistic recipes rather than his choice of apparel. The success of the "The Naked Chef" brought much attention to both Oliver and Llewellyn, who won a BAFTA Award in 2001 for Best Features, and led to three additional Christmas specials in addition to the show's original three-season run. Llewellyn continued to work on other cooking shows before she teamed up with another British celebrity chef, the fiery and temperamental Gordon Ramsay. "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" (Channel 4 2004-07) was an immediate success on both sides of the Atlantic. Each episode of show followed Ramsay as he attempted to salvage a restaurant from the brink of utter failure. The show's success allowed Llewellyn to start producing shows for American television. She and Ramsay worked with the Fox Network to adapt their series for American audiences and reworked the title as "Kitchen Nightmares" (2007-), in addition to creating two new hit shows, "Masterchef" (2010-) and "Hotel Hell" (2012-).