Ruth Hansom: The award-winning chef making waves from her Yorkshire restaurant
Ruth Hansom has just been named National Chef of the Year – the first woman in its more than 50 year history. Catherine Scott visits her at her eponymous Bedale restaurant.
Ruth Hansom was just 13 when she dug up her mum’s garden to grow vegetables.
It was the start of her love affair with food which has seen her move to London at 16, work at the Ritz as a teenager before returning to Yorkshire to open her own fine dining restaurant.
Now she has been crowned National Chef of the Year by the Craft Guild of Chefs – a past winner includes Gordon Ramsay.
She may still only be just 31, but this talented chef, whose dishes ooze seasonality and locality, has worked for some of the best in the business she is also no stranger to winning competitions.
Aged 15, after teaching herself the basics through watching TV programmes including MasterChef and Great British Menu – both of which she was later to appear in – with the support of her food tech teacher at school in Darlington she decided to enter Future Chef – a rigorous culinary competition run by the charity Springboard for those up to the age of 16.
Making it through to the national finals out of a field of close to 12,000, she was named runner-up of the entire competition and made some useful connections on the way.
"At the national finals people would just hand me business cards,” says Hansom. “They’d say ‘if you ever come to London, give me a call and I’ll give you a job’ which was crazy at that age.
"I did a lot of cooking at home with my parents – my dad in particular – but I got an obsession with growing things in my mum’s back garden.”
While her dad did most of the cooking at home, it is her mum’s lasagne that inspired a young Hansom.
"We knew if mum took a day off work we were getting lasagne as it took her an entire day to make it. It really taught me about the need for patience in cooking.”
After sitting GCSEs, she made up her mind – she wanted to become a professional chef and applied to Westminster College.
"I literally found a flat on Gumtree and told my mum I was leaving,” she says. “I think she thought I’d be back once I’d figured out I couldn’t do my own washing.”
Hansom spent a year studying at Westminster whilst also working at Shoreditch’s Boundary under head chef Frederick Forster – one of the chefs who had given her his business card when she was 15 – before beginning a three-year apprenticeship at The Ritz, where she was trained by executive chef John Williams MBE.
Working alongside a chef as established as John Williams so early on in her career was invaluable and it is clear Williams was and still is her inspiration.
“I was thrown in at the deep end and put on the sauce section, but his sauces are second to none,” she recalls.
“Don’t get me wrong it was hard work and I cried everyday for the first three months but I was determined to stick it out and then I fell in love with London.”
Whilst at The Ritz, she also managed to find the time to take part in numerous cookery competitions across the world, winning titles including Young National Chef of the Year.
“I love competing,” she says. “That’s what got me into the industry. It challenges you to do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do in your day-to-day job.”
After deciding to leave the Ritz, Hansom moved around a bit before taking her first head Chef position at Luton Hoo Hotel before moving back to London to a more relaxed style of cooking at Notting Hill’s Pomona’s, but it made her realise her heart lay in fine-dining.
She was able to test out some of her more refined dishes whilst also fulfilling a childhood dream by taking part in 2020’s Great British Menu, where her food proved a hit and took her all the way the final of the prestigious competition.
When Covid hit and Pomona’s closed, Hansom did have a moment of reflection about her future and what she wanted to do.
But then she was given the chance to relaunch the entire food offering at East London gastropub The Princess of Shoreditch.
“That really set me up as the owner really allowed me to run the restaurant how I wanted to run it.”
By then she had met and married her chef husband Mark Hansom-Rigby – the couple celebrate their 10th anniversary this year – and they were thinking of having their own restaurant.
They thought about buying a house and opening and restaurant in London but the pull of the north was too great – Mark is from Stockport.
“The produce is amazing up here, both sets of parents are in the north and so we decided to start looking up here.”
Ruth did a residence at Swinton Park while looking for somewhere suitable to open the restaurant.
"It also allowed me to start making connections with suppliers."
They didn’t know exactly where they wanted to be but really wanted no more than 16 covers, but then she fell in love with the building which had been Tom and Nellie (owned by Karl and Cathy Mason of Mason’s Gin).
“Before that it had been a much-loved Italian,” says Hansom. “Cathy and Karl had done all the hard work doing up the restaurant but I just fell in love with the beams.”
That was nearly three years ago and Hansom’s has quickly become an integral part of the Bedale community.
There is just Hansom in the kitchen creating tasting menus for 28 covers three days a week (lunchtime and evening) although she says her semi retired next door neighbour does help out in the kitchen from time to time and she has a front of house team.
The community seems to have taken them to their heart.
“Quite often we will get guests who rock up to the back door with produce they’ve grown. There is a kitchen garden over the road and the head gardener kindly bring us produce over.
"The sense of community here is wonderful – especially after living in London where you don’t even say hello to your next door neighbour. The support from locals has been incredible.”
And in return Hansom is passionate about supporting local businesses – her meat comes from local farms and fish mainly from Whitby.
"Running a restaurant isn’t just about feeding people, its about supporting the whole community.”
All the crockery is made by a local potter who was starting out. The bread boards and petit four boxes are made by a local woodworker.
"We are all about seasonality. If there is only a small amount of produce we use it that day and when it’s gone then we change the menu the next day. The tasting menu means there is no wastage.”
While Hansom says she would love a Michelin star, her main driver is ensuring her guests are happy.
"Obviously it would ne nice, If Michelin think we are worthy of a star then that’s a bonus.”
She has already caught to eye of food critic Giles Coran who gave her nine out of ten across the board describing her savoury bread and butter pudding as “gorgeous, sensual, full of love and truth”.
Looking to the future, they have just acquired a property across the road from the restaurant which they are turning in to five bedrooms initially with scope to add more.
She is aware that Bedale is a bit of a drive for people wanting to travel and there was a shortage of accommodation locally.
As for the National Chef of the Year title Hansom says: “The support from the local community and our guests has been amazing.
“But to be judged by such a panel of judges, in particular Mark Birchall who has three Michelin stars is amazing.”
As Chair of the Judges, Birchall, chef patron of Moor Hall, said: “This was an exceptional final and the standard across the kitchen was incredibly high.
"Ruth stood out with a menu that showed confidence and skill. Every dish delivered on flavour and the execution was consistently strong from start to finish.
"Ruth thoroughly deserves this title and I’m excited to see what comes next for her.”