Adam Jackson takes up head chef role at the Bow Room at York's Grays Court hotel

Adam Jackson has started a new role as head chef at the Bow Room at the historic Grays Court hotel within the city walls of York.

Jackson started in the role at the 12-room hotel last month, where he heads up a small team of four chefs at the 24-cover Bow Room restaurant. The hotel claims to be one of the most historic buildings in England, dating back to 1091, and has recently won an array of awards, including a gold winner of the Visit England Awards for Excellence in 2020.

Jackson was most recently at the Feversham Arms hotel in York as executive chef, where he added a number of dishes to the menu at the hotel’s two-AA-rosette Weathervane restaurant. Prior to this he was head chef at the Black Swan, where he helped the Yorkshire pub to win its first star in 2012 – a feat it repeated in 2013. He then set up his own restaurant, the Park in Marmadukes Townhouse hotel, also in York, which gained three rosettes, before joining the Feversham Arms prior to the pandemic.

“We’re looking to make the Bow Room restaurant the best restaurant in the city and we’re putting all the resources in to match the hotel, which is one of the best in the country,” he told The Caterer. “The York fine dining scene is going from strength to strength; every year it adds another feather to its cap. And everyone is doing something different, so York isn’t saturated by the same restaurant offering, which makes it individual and we don’t interfere with each other and can all share the same customers.”

Jackson says his style at the restaurant is “classically rooted cooking techniques with a modern twist”, and he will serve seasonal produce from the hotel’s kitchen garden and the local area. “We have wild sea trout on the menu at the moment from the north-east coast and asparagus from Spillman’s Farm just outside York.”