Craig Bancroft: 'This is a new chapter for Northcote'

Plans to develop a separate fine dining restaurant at Northcote Manor have been hailed as the start of a “new chapter” for the business.

The luxury Lancashire hotel was given the green light by Ribble Valley Borough Council earlier this month to develop a standalone single-storey restaurant building in its grounds.

The 48-cover restaurant will be run by executive chef Lisa Goodwin-Allen and is designed to encourage more guests to extend their stay for two nights.

Craig Bancroft, managing director at Northcote, said the plan was for the main Northcote dining room to become a brasserie while the new site would act as a signature restaurant to allow Goodwin-Allen “to reach her full potential”.

“We are very excited because this is the beginning of a new chapter for Northcote,” he said.

“It is our intention to give each restaurant a focus and its own identity, and to provide a platform of pure excellence that will be revered by many.

“The plan is for the traditional Northcote dining room to become a brasserie, still featuring a very high-level experience and sourcing quality ingredients, but in a more simplistic and affordable way, which will suit our residents and local clientele alike.

“Whereas the new development within the grounds will be a bespoke signature restaurant to help Lisa Goodwin-Allen to reach her full potential.

“The signature restaurant will be a modern, diverse space that will give a fabulous dining experience in line with the Northcote ethos, and present a highly focused, bespoke operation.”

Once the new restaurant is built, Goodwin-Allen will continue to oversee the food and beverage offer across the wider hotel and design all its menus.

It is hoped that the development will give more local residents a chance to dine at Northcote, which is often booked up by hotel guests. As well as being a four-red-AA-star hotel, its main restaurant holds four AA rosettes and has retained a Michelin star since 1996.

The hotel hopes to add extra hotel bedrooms, build a standalone spa, and reconfigure the site to add a new reception area in future.

Bancroft joined Northcote as general manager in 1983 and has continued to hold a senior role across the business. He was named The Caterer’s Hotelier of the Year in 2016, won the Wine and Spirit Ambassador Award at the 2017 Cateys and secured the Outstanding Contribution Award at the 2022 Hotel Cateys.

Northcote was acquired by Britannia Hospitality, the owner and operators of the Stafford Collection group of hotels and restaurants, in 2019.

It has been the host of the annual Obsession food festival, which sees some of the world's top chefs cook at the hotel over 17 days, for 23 years.

This year’s event ran from 19 January until 4 February and welcomed chefs including Aktar Islam, Sarah Hayward, Adam Handling and Michel and Emily Roux. Over 105 dishes were served to more than 1,750 guests and £110,000 was raised for charity.