Sophie Conran

Bayswater-based cookery writer and product designer, Sophie Conran, talks to Annie Deakin about motherhood and being part of that famous London clan  

Above: Sophie Conran photographed by David Loftus

Meeting a Conran could be excused as being a little intimidating; they are a ferociously ambitious clan. Yet when Sophie, the only daughter of Sir Terence welcomes me into the pink kitchen of her Bayswater home, she is eager to talk. Like her mother Lady Caroline, she is a cookery writer and like her father, a product designer. Mother’s Day is looming prompting Sophie to dredge up the memory of when her youngest child nearly died of meningitis. Her high-profile parents, full brothers Tom and Ned and half-brothers Sebastian and Jasper rallied around the clock.

Her family is best described as a national dynasty. At the helm is Sophie’s father Sir Terence Conran, a titan of British design and dining. ‘Being called Conran does mean you are listened to. After that, it’s up to you,’ Sophie explains, pouring tea from a silver teapot. Jasper, a celebrated fashion designer, for whom Sophie once worked, has said, ‘In our family, you don’t so much as swim as drown’. Also at the drawing board is kitchen gadget inventor Sebastian who created Nigella Lawson’s iconic cookware. Reaching from a shelf, Sophie raves, ‘He’s done these very cool scales –the weights are like beautiful, silver pebbles. Sebastian is fantastic, very, very clever.’

After leaving school, Sophie ran a catering company with her brother Tom who now runs a mini-empire of Notting Hill gastro-pubs including The Cow. Sophie explains, ‘I remember thinking that I do not want to work in a restaurant kitchen. It’s very hard work physically and can be fairly repetitive. I prefer the creative side of cooking.’
Unlike her brother, father and uncle Antonio Carluccio (who married Terence’s sister), Sophie vetoed restaurants in lieu of writing her first book Sophie Conran Pies. ‘I still spend a lot of time cooking and going to food markets.’ The pages of her book brim with charming cartoons by the youngest of the clan, Ned, an artist. ‘Aren’t they brilliant?’ she gushes.

Before Sophie Conran Pies, she racked up several careers hinting at a typically Conran restless energy. She worked for the milliner Stephen Jones, was a garden designer, made lollipops, worked in fashion in Australia and had an underwear company. Forgive the cliché but Sophie still has her fingers in a lot of pies. In addition to a Portmeiron tableware range that she designs, she has collaborated with the Ledbury Road chocolatier, Melt. They recently adapted one of her recipes (Winter Spiced Fruit Pie) into a chocolate ganache.

Like father, like daughter; she has several projects on the go. ‘He works incredibly hard. His enthusiasm is unbelievable,’ explains Sophie, who modelled for his catalogues. ‘He had woodwork workshops at home where they made the Habitat samples. Being entrepreneurial is in my blood, it’s what I grew up with.’

Sir Terence admits to having a ‘rather poor temper’. Is it true his children book appointments to see him? ‘No, not at all,’ she shakes her head defensively. ‘He has always been very accessible, no matter what he has been doing. If I ever phone him up, he is always there,’ she gushes, devoted. ‘I think he is quite soppy and I think he would have liked to have spent more time with his kids but they are all grown up. He is happiest when he has all his family around him.’

Over two decades ago, Sir Terence gave his children Habitat shares with instructions to invest in property or to start a business. Sophie spent £140,000 on eight pigeon-infested bedsits in a grand stuccoed building in a garden square. She knocked them into a spacious duplex apartment and still lives there today. ‘I bought this when I was 20; I am now 42,’ she says amid a cacophony of drilling. Builders are expanding sideways into a neighbouring flat she recently bought. 

 ‘It was really rough when I moved in with lots of kerb crawling.’ Now a gem of a neighbourhood, she shops in Notting Hill and feeds the ducks in Hyde Park, both a stone’s throw away. ‘We go on the boats in the Serpentine and walk around the sunken gardens by Kensington Palace.’ Her children Felix, 13 and Coco, 11, love Yo Sushi! in Whiteley’s where they eat out of the colour-rimmed bowls designed by their uncle Sebastian.

Now researching her second cookbook, Felix and Coco have become her guinea pigs tasting her dishes. ‘Lidgates is great, especially if you are ordering strange things like veal knuckles, calves foot or oxtails jointed. Kitchen Ideas on Westbourne Grove is amazing, like walking into your granny’s cupboard.’

For all her business ventures, motherhood was her greatest ambition. ‘I love it – the realisation that you are completely responsible for this life. Babies are so vulnerable.’ She understands better than most. Coco was one week old when she developed a rash and a temperature. It was meningitis B. ‘She had to have lots of tests until she was three or four to check if her hearing was impaired or if she had any brain damage.
She was always such a gorgeous, lovely bundle of smiles. You accept them as they are, I guess. Thankfully she is 100 per cent now but I don’t think I would love her any less if…’

Last year, her children bought her breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day. ‘Coco had made eggy bread in heart shapes with cookie cutters,’ Sophie beams. Their grandfather Sir Terence shares her pride. ‘We went to where I grew up when Felix was little. He was digging out the contents of a loaf of bread and I was trying to stop him. Dad was like, “oh, he is having such a lovely time, leave him”.’

The Conran clan must be a daunting family to belong to – you have to be blind not to notice that London is over-run by their creations. Yet Sophie holds her own, ‘I have always been quite a girly girl but I am quite practical. I can mend a door handle if I need to.’ Her designer gourmand brothers and parents have high expectations and to Sophie’s credit, they can’t get enough of tasting her pies.

Sophie Conran’s Pies is published by Collins (£12.99)