Celebrity Chef Tonia Buxton: "The Cypriot diet is the best in the whole wide world"

Her eyes light up when she talks about what is undoubtedly her favourite topic – Cypriot cuisine – which she describes as “the best in the whole wide world.”

Tonia Buxton, the host of the Discovery Channel’s Travel & Living series My Greek Kitchen 1 & 2 and My Cypriot Kitchen, talks about the memories that tie her to Cyprus and her personal journey that has led her to become a global spokeswoman for the flavours and dishes that are part the island’s rich culinary history.

A UK Cypriot by birth and a mother of four, Tonia Buxton has made an international name for herself through her TV shows and books. She credits her work ethic and willingness to go the extra mile for enabling her to put Cyprus on the global culinary map and chase the passion that she has turned into a successful career.

“I think the key is to be present, to get up, to do the work. That’s what lies behind any success,” she says. “Simple things, like getting up early, making your bed, exercising, eating well…doing all the things that make you the best you can be, and then working towards your goal. And it’s not easy. Nothing’s easy!” she notes, referring to her own journey, that includes writing five books and hosting several series of acclaimed TV programmes.

“I had no help at all. I knew no-one in the TV world. I was just unrelentingly hard working and determined,” she explains, adding that it took her two years to get her first show off the ground. The positive side of hard work, she adds, is that it is eventually worth the pay-off. “My success comes down to having quite a strong driving factor, doing all the work that needs to be done and keeping it up,” she reveals.

A traditional upbringing in the UK

Buxton’s parents were immigrants to the UK and she recalls having quite a traditional upbringing, as the oldest daughter, cooking for the family from a young age. The realisation that food and cooking were a passion of hers finally dawned on her at university, where she saw how her fellow students were unable to cook even a basic meal, which led them to unhealthy eating habits. So, she started to cook and word soon got round that she was really good, making her simple meals a staple for her friends. This epiphany about food and her own path guided her to seek the career she needed and enabled her develop her drive for hard work. “I love food, I love exercise, I love nutrition, I love longevity, I love joy,” she says.

So, what happened to her studies? Having studied classics at university and with a passion for history, she originally imagined herself becoming a TV historian but, after discovering the strong pull of food and cooking, she accepted the inevitable. That said, she always tries to put as much history as she can into her shows, especially given the fact that Greece and Cyprus both have such rich histories.

But she was in the UK, so why did she want to focus on Cyprus? She puts it down to her Cypriot heritage, which made her view a show on the country’s cuisine as a chance to bring it into the spotlight, “instead of it being little more than a footnote to Mediterranean or Greek cuisine. I watched other cookery programmes on television and there was never anything about Cyprus or its dishes. So, I thought, ‘Hang on a minute. I’m Cypriot! I want this to be about Cyprus’ and I’m very proud of the fact I was the first person to put Cyprus in a TV show that has been shown in 35 countries. I knew it would be good. I felt it in my heart,” she explains.

A passion for food

She’s passionate about the food she loves and promotes: “There is none better than Greek and Cypriot cuisine. There is none better, full stop! But we’re not very good at promoting it and that’s one of my real gripes,” she says. “If you think about the Italians or the French,” she continues, “they get a product and they optimise it – they almost shove it down your throat! We all know Parma ham and French champagne. We have Commandaria but who knows about it? And we messed up with the one thing that we do have and everybody knows – halloumi. I get very, very upset and frustrated by the mismanagement of our products,” she states with obvious concern. “This mismanagement, coupled with bad marketing, is a shame, especially given the fact that the Cypriot diet is the best in the whole wide world,” she adds.

Eventually, Tonia Buxton moved beyond cooking healthy meals and introduced wellness into her life. She recalls that she had never been a natural athlete but, during her university days, she started training and doing sport in an effort to impress the man who would become her husband. However, after starting to do more sport and live a more active lifestyle, she soon discovered that the additional benefits made all the effort worth it. “While I was doing all those things, I saw the health benefits, the energy benefits and the psychological benefits,” she says. They even helped her while she was pregnant with her first child and, after giving birth, she went on to train for her first bodybuilding competition and found herself in the best physical shape of her life.

So, wellness has always been in her heart, whether in the food she eats or as part of her broader lifestyle. “We’re all having our children later, so we need to stay younger. To do that, we need to stay well,” she explains, and adds, “A lot of it is the nutrition but a lot of it is the lifestyle and the exercise which guides us properly and shows us how to live a good and healthy life.”

Offering another tip on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, Buxton highlights the importance of moderation and abstinence – occasionally turning down a particular food or drink that we enjoy, which makes it all the more desirable and, in the end, delicious when we finally taste it.

“For example, suppose syrupy baklava is your favourite thing. If you eat it every single day, it becomes a habit, which then becomes an addiction. And there’s nothing joyful about that. There’s nothing pleasurable about it,” she explains, before adding, “If you decide to have that baklava just once a week, it becomes a much more joyful experience and the baklava itself will be even more delicious and mouthwatering.”

Favourite Cypriot dish? Too many to choose from!

Asked to name her favourite Cypriot dishes, Buxton says that there are too many to choose from. She loves fresh black-eyed peas (“louvi”) with vegetables but is also fond of souvlaki, “trahana” soup and a nice hummus dip.

How has Tonia Buxton managed to balance a highly successful career with bringing up four children? In a word, she says, it was “chaos!” before elaborating: “A career is all well and good and I’ve had a lovely career. I’ve also had a very supportive husband and I’ve managed to do both. It’s all about juggling responsibilities and loving each other, which has always kept the family together. and ready to help each other. Family is everything to me,” she says, adding that her favourite part of any day or week is when her entire family is gathered around the dinner table. “I’m happiest when I’m sitting at the table with my four children and we’re arguing, usually about food!”

Her love for the island is something that she has, of course, passed on to her own children, all of whom are tremendously proud of their Cypriot heritage. One of her daughters, Antigoni, is a musician who has not only performed with the well-known Greek singer Nikos Vertis but also includes influences from traditional Greek and Cypriot music in her own songs.

Visits to Cyprus now resemble a big comfort blanket, she says, and remembering her own childhood, she adds that, “When I think of Cyprus, I remember having this lovely freedom and complete relaxation.”

• This article first appeared in the 2025 edition of The Cyprus Journal of Wealth Management. Click here to view it. To view the full edition, click here