Pride and produce . . .

Probably Yorkshire Puddings with their sweet, eggy aroma when they were cooking on a Sunday, and watching them rising through the glass oven door. I used to like making the batter, letting it rest, the fat fizzing and bubbling in the hot, smoking pudding trays as the mixture was poured in, carrying trays to the oven and topping them up with the batter.

Who was your first mentor in the kitchen. How did that person inspire you?

Ken Allanson was the lecturer in charge of me at what was Scarborough Technical College. He taught me to taste food, gave me a discipline with food and taught the foundations of classical cookery, which I developed into what I do today. I also loved watching Floyd on TV, Floyd on France, etc.

At what point did you think you might be able to make a living out of it?

When I was 14 years old, I remember reading a review on Denis Watkins at The Angel at Hetton written by Robert Cockroft in the Yorkshire Post, while sitting on a bar stool in the “posh end” of the Wheatsheaf at Egton. I told my Dad, “I’m going to have a place like that one day!” So probably then. Denis eventually became a good friend.

Whose cooking do you admire and why?

I was inspired by the likes of the Roux Brothers and Marco Pierre White in the early days and Paul Heathcost cooking two Michelin star “Lancashire” food. Nowadays, I think Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley in London is very good. I also love the starred chefs of France and their “cuisine terroir” cooking food from their region. Their pride in their regional produce is what I try to emulate for my own local produce.

What are your pet hates as regards the following... food and ingredients generally?

I don’t like it when the food doesn’t fit the place. I cook what’s in season and what is around me: a Yorkshire lad, cooking Yorkshire food for Yorkshire people – and a few others from further afield! My aim is to offer simple food and flavours, which our guests can relate to. The menu should reflect the surroundings, which, in our case, means country food, seasonal, local, quality meats, game from the nearby moors and estates, fish and shellfish from the North Sea, and equally, good fruit and vegetables from the Vale of York.

...working in the kitchen

My pet hate as regards working in the kitchen is waste. It annoys me intensely because it’s my money, it is just lazy or shows a lack of knowledge of how to utilise everything possible from each ingredient. And if staff don’t know, I expect them to learn!

...other people’s cooking

Having written two books, Black Pudding and Foie Gras and Loose Birds and Game, you can presume my style is fairly forthright and to the point. I like food and dishes not to be messed around with. Classics are classics for a reason.

* Andrew Pern and his wife Jacquie bought The Star at Harome in 1996 and put up his first Michelin star six years later. He was born and bred in the Esk Valley, near Whitby.