A touch of star quality for city riverside venue

It isn’t that long since Andrew Pern was hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In 2009 his award-winning restaurant, The Star Inn at Harome, was closed for a week due to an outbreak of norovirus. Two years later he lost his coveted Michelin Star and then his marriage broke down.

However, two years on and Pern is definitely on the up. He has a new partner, a new baby and a new business.

The Star Inn the City is due to open in York on Tuesday, however when I visit with just two weeks before opening day it still looks like a building site. It is a building site.

There’s a concrete mixer, scaffolding, piles of hard core and stacks of stone flags waiting to be laid. A small army of builders are sawing, painting and hammering for all the world like a team of Oregon barn raisers.

It’s hard to imagine it will all be ready for opening night but Pern and business partner Justin Brosenitz assure me it will. It has to be. They’ve taken 5,000 bookings, appointed 50 staff and plan for 130 covers starting with 8am breakfast through to brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night cocktails. There will be kids’ menus and group menus, private dining and a chef’s table.

It’s a massive undertaking at the southern end of Museum Gardens overlooking the river. The old red brick listed Engine House once belonged to the Yorkshire Water Board, but had long been given over to graffiti-sprayed dereliction. Very soon it will house a glamorous bar with glazed ceiling panels, stools and sofas, a wood burning stove and on the mezzanine a private dining room. The Georgian windows of the panelled River Room gives a view down the river, sparkling today in the late autumn sunshine.

To the side of the Engine House is the new Garden Room, a contemporary wood and glass building, with banquette seating down the centre to make the best of the views, and leading off it, a terrace for outdoor dining its smooth decking spread like the bow of a ship ploughing through the river.

The mighty cruise ship is costing a small fortune to fit out, £0.5m according to Pern and Brosenitz, funded by a consortium of business people. It doesn’t appear to keep either of them awake at night.

“It’s a challenge. A different kettle of fish from the Star, and I like a challenge,” says an upbeat Pern.

He’s had plenty of challenges in the 17 years since he and his then-wife Jacquie opened The Star Inn at Harome and turned it into a destination restaurant that was to influence pub dining in Yorkshire for the next decade. Gutsy dishes of local ingredients transformed into plates of food that people wanted to eat. And people flocked. The Perns expanded to accommodate. They added luxury bedrooms, a corner shop and in 2002 were awarded a Michelin star, only the second pub to receive one. On the strength of it they built a new kitchen, a bigger dining room, they even bought another Harome hotel, The Pheasant, then in 2010 Pernshire almost came tumbling down.

“I was on a train to London to take part in the Great British Menu when I got a text saying; ‘sorry to hear the news’. That’s how I heard we’d lost our Michelin star,” says Pern. “The same day my wife told me she’d left me. It wasn’t a good day,” he says rocking back with laughter.

With husband and wife locked into the business they had built together from scratch and with four school age children, there was much to unravel. Three years on they appear to have reached an amicable arrangement in which Jacquie owns and runs The Pheasant Inn and Andrew has The Star. Both have new partners, and in Andrew’s case a ten-month old baby and an eight-year-old step son with his partner Fran.

Pern remains bemused by the loss of the Michelin star. “We are not doing anything different and are busier now than when we had the star,” he claims. But he doesn’t deny it matters. “It’s an accolade for a chef. It’s something to strive for so we won’t stop trying. Either myself or Steve (Steve Smith the Star’s head chef) have covered every shift. I thought we might get the star back this year, and in a way, I was more disappointed this time than when we first lost it.

“When you have a star, you’re part of a club and it’s more fun being in the club than out of it.”

Pern laughs a lot, makes self-deprecating jokes and has an easy relationship with his business partner Justin Brosenitz. The two of them are old rugby playing pals who met at Scarborough Tech. Brosenitz, is steeped in the business. He spent his childhood living above a series of York pubs that his father ran after retiring from professional rugby.

Later Brosenitz took on a number of East Yorkshire pubs of his own before joining Pern to manage and run the front of house in York. He’s still interviewing for the 30 or so waiting staff they need to support the two head chefs Matt Hunter from the Michelin starred Northcote Manor in Lancashire and Mike Cushing from York’s Living Room. And the food? “We’ll be cooking the same sort of food we serve at the Star,” explains Pern.

“We want to bring the country into the town. There will be mallard breast, venison shepherd’s pie, risotto of Harome partridge, honey from our own bees and figs from the Star garden.”

Meanwhile like two excitable puppies – Pern and Brosenitz are still dreaming up new ideas: hog roasts, musical evenings, a herb garden, kids cooking days. I just hope they’ve stocked up with enough loaves, fishes and venison pie to feed those 5,000.

Pern’s Progress – A Chef’s CV

Commis chef Milburn Arms. Met his future wife Jacquie. Promoted to head chef aged 22. Established his trademark ‘rich man, poor man’ cooking, mixing humble and luxurious ingredients as in his signature dish of black pudding and foie gras.

1996 – Purchased the Star Inn at Harome.

2004 onwards: Opened the ‘corner shop’, nine bedroom Cross House Lodge, extended the Star Inn, purchased the Pheasant Inn in Harome, leading to the aphorism: ‘Pernshire’.

2010 – Jacquie and Andrew agree to separate and subsequently divide the business.

2012 – Brosenitz and Pern acquire the Engine House in York’s Museum Gardens and transform it into the 
130 seater 
Star Inn the City.

Awards include three Catey’s (the catering industry Oscars), Good Food Guide, Newcomer of the 
Year; Egon Ronay Gastropub of the year. In 2002 a 
Michelin star.

2008 published Black Pudding & Foie Gras, 2010 published: Loose Birds & Game.