Leading Lancashire pub/restaurant the Freemasons in Wiswell reopened this week following a short closure to prepare for the arrival of its highly experienced new chef-patron, Mike Shaw. Mike’s task will be to restore the pub to the culinary eminence it achieved under chef Steve Smith, who left last year after 15 years in which the […]
Influential Liverpool chef Paul Askew and his son Harry have found a permanent home for Barnacle, their ‘Scouse brasserie’ – in a grand Grade II-listed building formerly occupied by the Royal School for the Blind in the city’s Georgian quarter. Named after Paul’s seafaring father, Captain ‘Barnacle Bill’ Askew, the restaurant champions produce grown on […]
Chef Tim Allen and his wife Mag are closing their Lancashire restaurant So-lo for three months this summer to allow for a complete refurb, including the addition of a chef’s table. They opened the restaurant – Tim’s first venture as chef-patron – four years ago in the village of Aughton, 12 miles north of Liverpool, and quickly […]
More than 10,000 diners have sampled the vast new Royal Nawaab restaurant in the ‘Stockport Pyramid’ building on the edge of Manchester, in a two-week soft launch ahead of its formal opening this month. The glass pyramid was the head office of the Co-Op Bank for 23 years until 2018, and has been converted at […]
Northcote, the Lancashire boutique hotel and gastronomic powerhouse that hosts the annual Obsession food festival, has been bought by new owners – who have persuaded executive chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen to return just a month after quitting, to a new role as chef patron-director. The acquisition by Yorkshire-based kitchen entrepreneurs Alf and Clare Ellis ends a period […]
Two prominent female chefs announced their resignations this week – Lisa Goodwin-Allen, executive chef at Northcote in Lancashire, and Sally Abé of the Pem in London. Lisa is stepping down after spending 23 years – more than half her life – at Northcote, the Ribble Valley institution where she has also acted as host chef for Obsession, the […]
Shaun Moffat is to open his debut restaurant as chef patron in Manchester city centre this spring, combining ‘thoughtful British cooking’ and ‘Northern hospitality’ at Winsome, in the glass atrium of the Whitworth Locke Hotel on Princess Street. Shaun (pictured centre) made his name locally at the Edinburgh Castle in Ascots – highly praised for its […]
Two chefs who were part of the opening team at Stockport’s high-flying foodie hotspot Where The Light Gets In eight years ago have teamed up to launch their own restaurant and wine bar, Cantaloupe, in the Cheshire town. Josh Reed-Cooper and Mike Thomas stayed in touch while working their way through some of greater Manchester’s […]
Northern culinary powerhouse Northcote has announced an all-star line-up of visiting chefs for the 25th anniversary edition of Obsession, its annual mid-winter ‘Glastonbury of Gastronomy’ in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley. The festival will host more than 1,700 diners over 17 consecutive nights from 24 January to 9 February next year. The 21 participating chefs with 27 […]
A restaurant offering a ‘fine-dining’ take on classic northern dishes has launched in Rochdale’s newly restored Victorian Gothic town hall. The Martlet Kitchen, named after a mythical bird with no legs, has taken flight under chef Darren Parkinson, formerly of Shibden Mill in Halifax. It is open all day from breakfast, via a straightforward lunch […]
