Simon Wood will not reopen Wood Chester

Simon Wood has announced he will not be reopening Wood restaurant at Chester’s Hotel Indigo.

The chef said operating restrictions have meant that a more casual offering will be better suited to the hotel, and with Wood’s brand moving in the opposite direction, he has decided to step away from the site one year after it opened.

Posting on social media, Wood said: “We have made the decision to change the focus of what we offer at Wood and in Manchester we are adapting to cope with the changes forced on us by the Covid-19 pandemic whilst also refining the dining experience to offer our guests the very best of my food.

“This means that we are stripping the menus back to focus only on my five, seven and 10-course tasting menus alongside a three-course, fixed price ‘a taste of Wood’ menu.

“This has meant that the restaurant in Chester doesn’t quite fit into this plan anymore. The operating restrictions have meant that a different, more casual offering is more suited to the hotel and that as we take our brand in the opposite direction we have taken the decision to step away from Hotel Indigo in Chester.

“It has been a great experience, we loved getting to know the city and working with the team at Castlebridge who own and manage the hotel – but in what has been an extremely tough time, we have all had to make the right commercial decisions.”

The former data manager opened his first Wood restaurant (set to reopen 10 July) in Manchester in 2017 after winning the BBC’s 2015 MasterChef competition. Woodkraft in Cheltenham, which opened in 2018, will reopen on 4 July.