Cecil’s, Scarborough: Yorkshire hotel restaurant by the sea awarded AA Rosette just 10 months after opening

Cecil’s Restaurant is part of the newly renovated The Weston Hotel overlooking South Bay beach.

Owners of the hotel and restaurant, Steph and Luke Allen, had given the restaurant an overhaul and invested in two young chefs.

Now their vision has paid off, with booked up evenings becoming the norm.

“One of the biggest things we’ve achieved was getting our restaurant Cecil's back up and running which we managed to do last September,” Mrs Allen said.

“We recruited a couple of really talented young chefs who have put their hearts and souls into making it a success because neither Luke or myself have any restaurant experience so we’re really reliant on their expertise.

“That in itself was a real challenge but since getting the rosette, that’s definitely been the springboard that we needed to keep it open.”

Mr Allen said they had redecorated the whole bar and restaurant space with new furniture also in place.

“It is coming together”, he added.

“[It took] a lot of hard work, a lot of investment into the kitchen etc. and an investment into the two young chefs; Andrew and Ronan.

“They’re in their mid-twenties, they are motivated guys. They have a vision and we want to back them on their vision.”

The pair said early months were a struggle.

“There were many instances in the first 10 months where the restaurant wasn’t very viable and we were just incurring huge losses,” Mrs Allen said.

However, they are now fully booked into the evenings.

“We are quite busy in the evenings and we’re turning people away which is not nice but it shows we’re doing ok now,” Mr Allen said.

“We’ve had tough times [where we wondered] whether we made the right decision because when we got the business it was a bed and breakfast and it was doing well,” Mr Allen said.

“But in reality, it’s in such a great location, such a great restaurant; 34 bedrooms really require a restaurant.

“When we invited the AA to visit I was pretty confident in what the lads were doing that we would receive culinary excellence.”

Mrs Allen said the pair were over the moon with the progress since September.

She added: “We had a rosette within 10 months of opening Cecil’s and that was a huge achievement for us.

“It was the hard work they had done throughout the year and that has been the springboard, the catalyst for the restaurant and word of mouth has spread more on the back of gaining the rosette.”