'I enjoy the role restaurants play in people's lives': Tom Heywood of Pignut & The Hare and Daniel Conlon of Rafters reach final of Chef of the Year competition

Chef Daniel Conlon’s journey into hospitality started long before he was old enough to work. His aunt and uncle owned a B&B in the Lake District and so he spent many a summer holiday there helping wherever he could.

“I was probably more of a nuisance than a help at times,” he says. “But I loved being involved – cleaning plates, setting tables, baking desserts with my auntie and watching her cook evening meals while my uncle prepared breakfast each morning. Looking back, that’s where my love of food and hospitality really began.”

Back home in Sheffield, the kitchen was a happy place for both Dan and his sister, who’d while away hours helping their mother with baking and home-cooked dishes. It was no surprise that they both ended up at catering college – his sister first and Dan following in her footsteps four years later studying professional cookery at Sheffield College whilst working part time at local restaurants in the city.

He joined Rafters as a part-time commis chef during his final year and when he finished in 2015, he was offered a full-time position. Dan, now 30, has been there ever since, becoming head chef in 2021. "I remember growing up there being a local restaurant my mum and dad would eat at,” he says. “I remember them going for their anniversaries and they spoke about it as being a fine dining restaurant. That was Rafters.”

One of his proudest moments has been leading the team to achieve three AA Rosettes in 2022. “That put us in a bracket with some of the best restaurants in the UK which was a really big achievement and something we had been working towards for a long time.”

Around the same time, Dan entered the prestigious Craft Guild of Chefs' National Chef of the Year competition for the first time, making it through to the semi-finals. This year, he’s entered again and is one of ten chefs to make it through to the final at the Le Cordon Bleu Cookery School on October 6. “I had another spark of wanting to push myself out of my comfort zone. I thought I’d enter again and see where it takes me. I really enjoy putting menus together, I really enjoy cooking so I thought let’s see what I can do with my entry…

"Making it to the final feels really good, a real sense of pride. It does give you a confidence boost and makes you feel like I am actually alright at this. When you’re working somewhere for so long, you don’t necessarily see the growth because you’re in it. You don’t see how much better you are and how you’ve progressed. It has given me a confidence boost that I am good at this and this is what I’ve worked over the last decade for.”

Fellow Yorkshire chef, Tom Heywood – the head chef and restaurant owner of Pignut & The Hare in Scawton, has also made it to the final of the competition, whose past winners include Gordon Ramsay. Like Dan, the 33-year-old has entered and reached the semi-finals before and decided to give it another go.

Their journey to the final began with a brief challenging chefs to create a three-course menu inspired by the theme Our Sustainable Future. Live semi-final cook-offs were then held at Sheffield College and Capital City College, with judges assessing technical skill and creativity in the kitchen as well as how competitors performed under pressure. Ten chefs will now refine the menus they originally submitted at the entry stage for the final.

The theme of the competition matches the ethos of Tom and wife Laurissa who opened the acclaimed Pignut restaurant in Helmsley in 2023, before moving to their current site. Sustainability is at the heart of their venture, the seasonal menu drawn from foraged ingredients and the hands of local farmers and suppliers.

“We’re constantly talking to suppliers to see what they’ve got, what they’ve not got,” Tom says. “We create a tasting menu around what we can get. If a farm has cauliflower we use it, if they don’t we take it off the menu. It’s as simple as that really as that way it’s always going to taste the best because we’re going to get the freshest ingredients and herbs and vegetables and plants.”

Tom, who grew up nearby in Church Fenton, has spent many years working in notable kitchens, taking his first head chef position at The Rattle Owl in York. He followed his father, also a chef, into the field. “I always grew up with him working a lot and I would sometimes go to the kitchen. So I saw a professional kitchen from being very young.

"I have memories of being sat on the workbench and getting to try homemade ice creams and sorbets. Like most young kids, I was also baking a lot at the weekend with my grandma, making cakes and buns and I loved doing that. I’ve always been around food and had an involvement with it from a young age.”

Opening Pignut was a big gamble he says. He and Laurissa, who focuses on the wine pairings, both left their jobs to launch the restaurant, a risk that paid off given its three AA Rosettes and its listing in the Michelin Guide.

“I’ve always wanted to see how we’d fare on our own,” Tom says. “Some nights we didn’t do any covers, didn’t do any bookings but we just kept going with it. Slowly we built it up and started getting busier and busier.”

For Dan, that custom is what drives him. “I genuinely love cooking, but what I enjoy most is the role restaurants play in people’s lives. They’re where birthdays are celebrated, anniversaries are shared and families and friends create memories together. Knowing that the food my team and I prepare becomes part of those moments is something I never take for granted. That’s what makes the job so rewarding.”

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