Former Raby Hunt chef James Close opens a purpose-built restaurant called Atlas at Rockliffe Hall near Darlington next week, with the declared ambition to establish it as “one of the world’s best restaurants“.
Atlas is one of six dining and bar options at Rockliffe Hall, a luxury resort hotel which has undergone a multi-million-pound transformation since James joined as culinary director two years ago. Built in 1863 by a Quaker banking family, the hall is now owned by industrial transport magnate Steve Gibson, the chairman of Middlesborough FC, whose training complex is adjacent, along with a championship golf course.
James, originally a pro golfer himself, is a self-taught chef who developed the nearby Raby Hunt from a real-ale boozer into a well-known foodie destination regularly listed on the Harden’s 100 list of the UK’s best restaurants.
Feeling they had taken the Raby Hunt as far as they could, James and his wife Maria – also a chef – closed it in early 2024 to join Rockliffe Hall. He says the new challenge has “ignited the fire in me again”.
“I had been at the Raby for 14 years. It was one of those restaurants that was absolutely doing fine, we were making money – no issues. But it wasn’t capable of having any more work done to it. It was a listed building, there wasn’t any ground to build any more rooms.
“So what we achieved was as far as we could go. Which would have been fine, but I want to achieve more.”
Atlas occupies a single-storey pavilion built in the last year to James’s exact specifications, with 36 covers, a six-seat chef’s table, Champagne bar, display fridges storing meat and citrus, and floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the grounds on one side and landscaping on the other.
Diners will start their meal in the bar and be taken on a voyage around the world, with a launch menu that name-checks the origin of each dish, starting with snacks that race from the Basque region and Japan to Mexico and Peru, followed by La Rochelle for mussels, St Malo for lobster, the Jura for quail in vin jaune, and the Miyazaki Highlands for wagyu beef.
“It’s not about gimmicks,” James says, “it’s a real high-end spec where we’re taking my experiences of travelling around the world and creating dishes that have been inspired by those experiences. Every dish has to have a sense of authenticity. It needs to be somewhere that I’ve travelled to or experienced.
“We really want to do what we were doing at the Raby and take it to another level. We weren’t able to do the service side of it, because we were based in a small pub. But at the new restaurant, it’s going to give us that level of experience that we really want to show off.
“Everything now is about experience – you can give people amazing food but they want more. They want you to grab them and give them something that you didn’t think you were going to get. The food has to continue to evolve, but everything else now has to go with it.”
In charge of the wine is Manuel Ghezzi, previously head sommelier at The Connaught, and diners will be able to choose from two wine pairings – one global, and the other consisting of chateaus and vineyards that the Closes have visited. There will also be a non-alcoholic pairing.
The food prices ranges from £190 per person for lunch to £300 per person for dinner at the chef’s table (which is the same as the chef’s table price at the Raby Hunt in its final year).
Rockliffe’s other eating and drinking options are: Rialto, an all-day Italian-American restaurant; Ro, a cocktail bar offering izakaya-style snacks alongside Japanese whisky and sake; the Morning Room for (confusingly) afternoon tea; Terra, a boutique-style café; and The Clubhouse, for all-day dining on the golf course.
