Meet the former Grantley Hall fine dining chef taking working from home to a new level in Harrogate

His impressive CV has included spells at the renowned Feathers Inn, in Hedley on the Hill, Northumberland, and he was part of Shaun Rankin’s fine dining launch team at Grantley Hall, in the Yorkshire Dales, as well as timing cooking in Sydney for demanding customers working in the banking district.

But a desire to live closer to his parents in Harrogate, combined with repeated lockdowns closing restaurants for months, has led him to start a new luxury takeaway business called Jack In A Box as word spread about the meals he was cooking for friends in the early months of the pandemic.

Robinson explains the business started by chance rather than design.

“It started off with 12 of my mates. I was furloughed from work and a bit bored so I said on WhatsApp to my friends, ‘If I make something and deliver it, would you cover the cost?’ People were up for it an I made a chilli con carne with cornbread and handmade soft cheese. They gave me £5 each and everyone loved it. They said, ‘What are you doing next week?’ I did a Thai curry and then people started asking if they could add their mum and dad or their sister to the group. It just snowballed from there.”

He is now using Facebook and Instagram to take orders and is in the process of setting up a website. In addition to his evening takeaways, which people collect from his flat after placing their orders, Robinson also makes healthy lunches for Harrogate’s office workers.

Jamie Oliver was early inspiration

While Robinson is enjoying getting started with the latest chapter in his culinary career, he almost went down a different path in life despite a

long-standing passion for cooking.

“As a teenager, when the original Naked Chef with Jamie Oliver came out, I used to watch it over and over on VHS,” he explains.

After considering enrolling into Prue Leith’s cookery school, Robinson instead opted to study chemistry at Keele University but soon realised how deeply his passion for food ran.

“I was the house cook for four years and I was always planning meals, even in lectures. Once I graduated I applied for a few chemistry-related roles but I had no drive to take it forward.”

After initially getting a job at a commis level at an Italian restaurant called Jakes in Harrogate, he went on to work at the town’s Bar and Grill restaurant.

He worked for 10 months in one of the busiest restaurants in the town and then spent a year in Australia, working for 10 of the 12 months in Melbourne and Sydney.

He returned to Yorkshire and worked at Harrogate seafood restaurant The Drum and Monkey before subsequently becoming head of food development for health food specialist Ügot.

Robinson went on to land a job as a sous chef at the prestigious Feathers Inn in Hedley on the Hill, an award-winning country pub that prides itself on its high-quality, locally sourced food.

Robinson says he learnt a great amount from working under head chef Rhian Craddock.

“I did that for a year which was brilliant. It was properly nose-to-tail stuff – nothing got wasted. If you ordered a pig, you would get the whole pig. It was a really good grounding in butchery and game.”

Dream job at Grantley Hall

He went on to become head chef at The Coach & Horses pub, in Harrogate, before landing a dream role as part of Shaun Rankin’s team when the culinary star became head chef at Grantley Hall in 2019 and launched a new fine dining experience.

“I had to go to almost the bottom of the scale to chef de partie where you are a responsible for one section of the kitchen. I had an interview with Shaun and he said ‘You have never been in this environment’. At the time I was 31, one of the oldest in the kitchen because it is just a quite a young person’s game these days.”

Robinson says he soon discovered working for Rankin was on a different level to anything he had experienced previously as the team worked under the pressure of delivering technically-perfect dishes to expectant customers.

In a sign of the attention to detail that went into every meal, the team travelled across Yorkshire to meet their various food suppliers and see how they operated at first-hand. Robinson would also grow, harvest and cook vegetables using the hall’s dedicated kitchen garden and take part in foraging expeditions for ingredients.

“It was like being in the Army – fine dining requires military precision. You are pushed to your limits. Shaun tried every element of each dish every day. It was hard but it was brilliant.”

After six months in the role, Robinson says he left on good terms after deciding he wanted to be closer to Harrogate for family reasons.

How lockdown hobby became new business

Robinson took a stop-gap job in a local bakery while he was deciding on his next steps before lockdown hit – leading him to his unexpected new direction.

As interest in his high-quality homecooked meals grew last year, Robinson worked out a routine to meet the demand.

“On Monday I would write a menu. The idea of it would be something you might never have had before. I would just delve into world cuisine and might come up with a curry you hadn’t heard of. On the menu, I would put a little explanation of where it has come from.

“I would get the menus out at 3pm on Monday, the WhatsApp group would light up and I might get 50 orders.”

He started investing in equipment including multiple fridges and freezers and formally established the business in August 2020. After expanding the menu options and going from cooking on just Thursday evenings to doing it on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, he says it has been going from strength to strength so far.

“At Christmas, I did 35 cheesecakes and the take-up for the Valentine’s menu this year was crazy. I did build-your-own taco sets. It was a combination of high-end ingredients but still a relaxed street food environment.”

In addition to the takeout evening meals at weekends, he also provides healthy lunches for busy workers. He is also providing bespoke catering for events – ranging from a garden party, to stag do who have asked for a Tudor-style feast.

After the punishing hours that come with working in a kitchen, Robinson says another great advantage of his new business is that it allows him to pursue his passion for cooking while still being able to have a social life.

“The joy of this is I previously struggled for a work-life balance. Now if I get invited to a friend’s birthday party, I’m finally able to go.”

Expansion plans for fledgling business

Jack Robinson hopes he will soon be able to hire a unit for his cooking as he expands his business.

“Harrogate is full of foodies and it has just all grown by word-of-mouth,” he explains.

“I’m hoping to grow and get out of the flat and rent a little unit.

“What I have really enjoyed is becoming friends with everybody who comes to collect the food. Usually as a chef you are a bit removed from the people who are eating what you have made.

“But now I am getting to know all these people I have never met before.

“That sense of community is what is pushing me forwards. I want to keep the quality as high as I can.”

For more information, follow @jackinaboxcatering on Instagram.

Support The Yorkshire Post and become a subscriber today. Your subscription will help us to continue to bring quality news to the people of Yorkshire. In return, you'll see fewer ads on site, get free access to our app and receive exclusive members-only offers. Click here to subscribe.