Table Talk

Sometimes in life, you just know you need to make a change. For Lauren Mote, that realisation came as she approached the end of her international politics degree. "I was opening my Russian politics book and thinking 'I'm not interested in this," she tells Elisa Roche. "And then (I was) picking up Harold McGee's 'On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen'." Lauren says it wasn't that she'd lost interest in academia, just that the subject matter had changed. Fast forward 24 years and she's been named one of the best bartenders in the world, became Diageo's first ever Reserve Global Cocktailian, and has launched a number of successful businesses. Her career in hospitality didn't start with quite so much glamour, although she does say she got "gratification" from her job as a singing hamburger dresser when she was 16. Listen on to hear about the strong female figures who inspired Lauren to succeed, how she sees herself as still very much on a career journey, and get her top tip fo