Pret founder felt ‘luckiest man ever’ after discovering secret daughter

The founder of Pret a Manger has said he felt like the “luckiest man ever” after finding out he had a secret daughter.

Julian Metcalfe, who co-founded sandwich chain Pret in 1984, said Camilla Ravenshear, a former partner, gave him the news over the phone 15 years ago.

Speaking during an episode of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, Mr Metcalfe said Ms Ravenshear, who died aged 57 in 2017, had kept their child’s existence a secret for nearly two decades.

Celeste Tobias, who sits on the board of the Japanese food chain Itsu, which Mr Metcalfe owns, grew up thinking she was the youngest child of Oliver Tobias, who starred in the 1978 film The Stud.

Ms Ravenshear divorced Mr Tobias in 1991, whom she shared two children with.

Mr Metcalfe said he met his child, who was then a University of Bristol student, two weeks after being informed he was her father.

‘I thought she needed help’

He said: “Her mother called me who I hadn’t seen for ages. I had no idea her daughter was my daughter, I’d never met her. Her mother asked to see me and we met on the King’s Road.”

Asked if he was suspicious about meeting Ms Tobias, he said: “I certainly wasn’t suspicious of that. I thought maybe she needed help.”

He said Ms Ravenshear told him: “I have a daughter and she’s your daughter”, adding that she had broken the news to their child just two weeks earlier, and that it was not well received.

The three are believed to have met for the first time at Babington House, Somerset.

Upon hearing the news, Metcalfe claimed he said: “I have a brilliant, beautiful and thoughtful 19-year-old daughter. I reckon I’m the luckiest man ever.”

Metcalfe, who lives in South Oxfordshire, said he now has a good relationship with his daughter.

Mr Metcalfe, an Old Harrovian, has three children and became a grandfather when Ms Tobias gave birth to a daughter, Tiger-Lily, in 2019.