Chef profile - Tom Heywood at the Rattle Owl in York

“He’s interested, engaged and easy to deal with,” says Rattle Owl owner Clarissa O’Callaghan. “Tom has brought us back to our roots with a commitment to sustainability and good local produce.”

That produce comes in large measure from Food Circle York, a community project which brings together local producers and growers to supply restaurants (and residents) with organic, seasonal produce.

Rocket and Russet grow the tomatoes for Tom’s light, fresh gazpacho, softened with Yellison’s crowdie; kale, carrots and a host of other vegetables come from Newfield Organics of Fadmoor. There are wild mushrooms from Yorkshire Fungi and pasture-fed pork and chicken from Grassfruits Farm.

A collaboration with York Cocoa House has led Tom to experiment with different kinds of chocolate, the stunning results are a chocolate delice served with Whitby salt ice cream. He makes the salt himself from Whitby sea water delivered by their fish man.

Clarrie credits Tom Heywood with creating ‘beautiful food’, though it’s her vision and ethos that created the Rattle Owl in 2015. A former human rights lawyer, she had no previous experience of running a restaurant, just the enthusiasm to create a relaxed, ethically-run restaurant, serving top class food.

Renovating a 17th century listed building on York’s Micklegate was a challenge. There followed changing chefs, unreliable plumbing and ‘a building crumbling around my ears’. She soon discovered that running a restaurant was a lot harder than she thought.

Today though, Clarrie has a delightful, welcoming restaurant with Tom’s talent and skill giving it a new-found confidence. “She allows me free range,” he says. He is free to source the produce and construct the dishes as he wishes and he’s created an exciting à la carte and an innovative six-course tasting menu.

Tom, what was the first dish you remember cooking? Cakes and buns with my grandma. At 14 I went to work at a local pub in Church Fenton.

Who is your culinary inspiration? First, my dad who is a chef. Later I went to Blue Hill, at Stone Barns, in New York State. Dan Barber was so inspiring, it changed my life. I knew then this is how it should be done.

What are your favourite cookery books? I like to read about chefs: Phillip Howard’s The Square; and Pollen Street by Jason Atherton.

Who would be your dream dinner guests? Chefs – Gordon Ramsay (away from all the stuff on TV, he’s an amazing chef), Dan Barber and Marco Pierre White.

Do you have a favourite food? Chocolate. Working with York Cocoa House we’ve discovered so many different elements in chocolate.

What ingredient could you not be without? I’m using a lot of rose veal fat at the moment. We cook carrots in it for ages, it makes them amazingly sweet.

What’s the impact of ‘Lockdown 2’ for you? We all saw it coming and we appreciate it needs to be done. The biggest difficulty up to now has been the rule of six and the curfew. Nobody wants to eat at 5pm so we can’t do two sittings. We used to have large tables in the private dining room but now we have fewer and smaller tables. We are staying positive and we have a good team. We’re closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but we plan to be there right up to Christmas Eve.

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