She later worked at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, Green's, The Belvedere in Holland Park, Alfred's, the Groucho Club and The River Café.

During a spell in the United States, facilitated by being awarded a special visa as 'an alien with extraordinary ability in the culinary arts', McEvedy worked at Rubicon and Jardinière in San Francisco, and ran the kitchen at Robert De Niro's New York City restaurant Tribeca Grill, regularly doing 500 covers a night.

However, she became disillusioned with cooking "posh food for rich people",[5] and put into action a plan to specialise in affordable dining when she returned to the UK.

She was the chef in the 2008 BBC television series The Supersizers Go... with Giles Coren and Sue Perkins recreating historical British dishes such as Eel pie, Paraffin Cake and Tansy.

A six-part BBC Two series, Economy Gastronomy, presented by McEvedy and Paul Merrett, began in August 2009 and was accompanied by a book of the same title.

[9] In 2018, she hosted the CBBC series Step Up to the Plate with Fred Sirieix,[10] in which they tested eight young people in each episode to see if they have the skills to run their own restaurant.

As a consequence of this, and the stress arising from coming out as gay, she found adjusting to adult life difficult and was expelled from school, though she nevertheless took and passed her A-levels.