Ashley Palmer-Watts to open restaurant with rooms in spring 2024

Ashley Palmer-Watts is to return to the UK restaurant scene with the launch of a multi-faceted project in Cobham, Surrey, in spring 2024.

The chef, who spent 20 years working at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck Group, will open a restaurant with rooms on the former site of the Garden Cobham.

This will incorporate a 35-cover high-end restaurant with additional seating in a terrace garden, a 52-seat wine bar, a cafe, and a bakery, all set around a courtyard.

There are plans to open luxury guest accommodation at the site in future and the outside space is being redeveloped with an extensive kitchen garden.

Palmer-Watts said: “I can’t wait to be back in the heart of the industry, drawing on all my experience of opening various restaurants at different levels within the Fat Duck Group.

“It’s an incredible location, and with food history being of such interest, particularly in recent years, to be able to bring life back into the walled garden and reimagine it with a collection of food experiences is a dream come true for me.

“I look forward to sharing further details of the project as we near completion of the work.”

Palmer-Watts left the Fat Duck Group in 2019 and in 2020 launched Artisan Coffee Co, which sells speciality coffee created by the chef.