A juncture between Europe, Africa and Asia, the Middle East is a melting pot of cuisines and cultures. It is, to put it simply, enormous, encompassing Syria to Sudan and Afghanistan to Algeria. Over the last couple of decades, our understanding of its cooking has blossomed, with the likes of Yotam Ottolenghi introducing home cooks to now-staple ingredients including tahini, sumac and preserved lemon, and chefs such as Helen Graham and Stosie Madi showcasing the cuisine's potential. But in an area so diverse, there's always more to learn – our associations with Middle Eastern cooking often still focus on falafel, hummus and shawarma, for example, something Ayesha Kalaji is keen to change. 

At her Queen of Cups restaurant in Glastonbury, Ayesha takes traditional Middle Eastern cooking and gives it a contemporary rethink. 'It's modern Middle Eastern, showcasing the best local produce,' she says. 'It's not authentic Middle Eastern, because it's shown through my lens. Being half Arab and half Welsh, I grew up in the UK and I'm very connected to that food.' The restaurant pays homage to her family, with the menu featuring dishes inspired by their recipes – when we speak, Ayesha is adapting a horaa osbao recipe from her aunt. Her biggest driver, though, is dispelling stereotypes around Middle Eastern cooking. 'There are misconceptions that it’s just hummus, kebabs and falafel, but there’s so much more to it,’ she says. ‘There are floral, delicate flavours; it can be so many things. I want to showcase it the best I can.'

Ayesha always planned to learn more about her Jordanian roots while at university, but she originally had her sights set on becoming a war correspondent. As her Middle Eastern Studies degree got under way, though, she found her aspirations drifting more towards the kitchen. Nearing graduation – she had promised her parents she'd finish her degree first – she booked a spot on a course at Leiths Cookery School and, in the meantime, angled her studies towards food where she could. She focused a final university project on the anthropology of food, for example, poring over old cookbooks and getting a deeper grasp of her culinary heritage. 'Despite what I was looking at being thousands of years old,’ she says, ‘there were connections to today. Hummus now is not so dissimilar to how it was being made then, and to have that in your heritage is so interesting. I didn’t have a hugely traditional Middle Eastern upbringing, so the food was a tangible way to learn about my heritage.’

Though Ayesha has childhood memories of labneh and pita weekend breakfasts, her upbringing – she was raised by her British mother and Jordanian father – was understandably shaped by her North Wales surroundings, although much of it was rooted in delicious food. ‘I have lots of photos of me as a child eating or in the kitchen,’ she laughs. ‘I have always relished food, there are so many photos of me with a hand in a mixing bowl. There’s a story that my mum loves to tell that as a child I’d go into the fridge and nibble along the edge of a block of cheese so no-one would notice.’ When the time came to turn that early love of food into a career, she knew quickly that she'd made the right decision; her first day at Leiths, and a three-hour lecture on all things egg in particular, was a lightbulb moment, she says.

University laid the foundations, and Ayesha's next moves deepened her understanding of Middle Eastern cuisine. Her first restaurant job was at modern Jerusalem restaurant The Palomar in Soho, a stint she remembers fondly. She joined in the year it was named The Observer's restaurant of the year and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand. ‘It was truly going into the frying pan,’ she says. ‘It was so buzzy, busy, cool and exciting; I didn’t have to go into the cheffing world in a basement kitchen.' But her enthusiasm didn't mean she escaped the stress. 'You learn how to cook at Leiths, but you don’t learn how to do service; I definitely cried in the dry store at times. It was very, very hard.’

A knee injury forced Ayesha back to North Wales, and at the end of her recovery she spotted a job listing in Anglesey, at Stephen Stevens' one-star Sosban. She describes Stephen as a 'phenomenal chef', but remembers her six months there as a challenging spell of long days and weeks. ‘That was without a doubt the hardest kitchen I have worked in, and I learnt a lot there,’ she says. ‘It was brutal in many respects, but I learnt so much and Stephen’s passion for local produce was inspiring. I knew that if you really wanted to excel you had to show that dedication.’ Returning to the capital, stints at Le Bab and the Tel Aviv-inspired The Good Egg followed; she was part of the opening team at the latter and spent two years there, inspired by its female head chef and executive chef. Next, she joined Helen Graham at Bubala in Soho (Helen had been the first person who taught her on a section at The Palomar, making it something of a 'full circle' moment). 'Helen was wonderful,' Ayesha says. 'She'd say 'what if I put this and this together' and it was always delicious.' 

Eighteen months later, Ayesha began to tentatively explore going it alone, inspired by a friend who ran a B&B in Glastonbury. It might not have been her dream location, but she was soon won over, finding pub and restaurant the Queen of Cups and setting out on a whirlwind six-week turnaround before opening. It has, she says, been a learning curve; the menu has evolved and she has become immersed in the local area. Today, almost three years on, she's embedded in the local community and striking a happy balance between tradition and modernity.

Ayesha certainly isn't resting on her laurels, though; when we speak, it's clear she is ambitious in her drive to open our eyes to the nuances and complexities of Middle Eastern food and drink (she is one a handful of restaurants in the UK with Jordanian wines on the menu). Last year, she appeared on BBC's MasterChef: The Professionals, her first major foray into TV, an area she's keen to explore more. She isn't putting limits on what's possible, with her sights set on everything from cooking demonstrations and talks to TV shows. ‘I’m very ambitious,’ she smiles. ‘I want it all. It’s still a male-dominated industry and women in kitchens can still be very humble. I want the books, I want the show, I want the restaurants – and I don’t see why, if I work hard, I can’t have it.’