Octopus snaps up Leon soup book

Conran Octopus has acquired Leon: Happy Soups by Rebecca Seal and John Vincent.

The Octopus Publishing imprint will publish the collection of 100 “all-smiles recipes” on 5th October retailing at £15.99. Alison Starling, publisher at Octopus, acquired world rights from Leon’s agent, Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton.  

The recipes are billed are divided into “Comforting”, “Naturally Fast”, “Bright & Fresh”, “Posh and Sweet Soups”, as well as “Sides” and “Crunchy Tops & Swirly Swirls”.

Seal is a journalist whose and writer whose cookbooks include Postcards from Greece and Istanbul: Recipes from the heart of Turkey, both published by Hardie Grant. She is one of the food and drink experts on Channel 4's "Sunday Brunch".

Vincent is co-founder of Leon, which now has more than 45 restaurants across the UK and two in Amsterdam. He wrote the Leon Naturally Fast Food with another of the chain's co-founder, Henry Dimbleby, Leon Family & Friends with Kay Plunkett-Hogge and Leon Happy Salads and Leon Fast & Free with Jane Baxter, all published by Conran Octopus.

Starling said: “Leon Happy Salads (July 2016) has worked for us across all markets, clocking up TCM sales of sales of more than 20,000. It’s a joy to team up with John Vincent and the energetic team at Leon once again and to work with the hugely talented Rebecca Seal for the first time.”

Seal described the book as a “dream job”. She said: “Working on the recipes with John was such great fun – we worked with key Leon flavours but also developed recipes for soups from everywhere from Korea to Mexico.”

Vincent said soup offered the “most wondrous flavor playground”. He added: “Big thanks to my play-date Rebecca who went round and round, up and down and side to side with me. It was a joy.”

Leon was set up in 2004 by Vincent, Dimbleby and chef Allegra McEvedy. In In 2013 Vincent and Dimbleby produced the School Food Plan, published by the Department of Education, and were both awarded an MBE two years later for services to school food.