CELEBRITY chef Richard Phillips will use webcam technology to communicate with the kitchen in Oddfellows when he joins the award-winning team.
Michelin-starred chef Richard is forming a partnership with the boutique hotel, restaurant and members’ club from September.
As consultant chef, he will be a regular presence at the Lower Bridge Street venue but will also keep in touch with his team via kitchen webcams.
Richard, who has appeared on BBC’s Ready Steady Cook and ITV’s Daily Chefs, said: “I believe in adhering to traditional culinary techniques while modernising the execution and sometimes introducing the unexpected.
“I am thrilled to be opening Richard Phillips at Oddfellows. It has a fantastic reputation and I am looking forward to raising the bar even further to make this the ‘must dine at’ venue not only in Chester but the whole of the North.”
Richard began his career with the legendary Albert and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche in London.
As the youngest commis chef at the three-star restaurant, he became chef tournant and later worked at the brothers’ hotel in Courcheval, France.
Richard also oversaw the famed kitchens at the Oak Room, The Mirabelle, The Criterion and Les Saveurs for another culinary giant, Marco Pierre White.
Richard is chef-patron of Thackeray’s Restaurant in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, which gained a coveted Michelin star in its first year in 2001 and boasts three AA rosettes for its French cuisine.
He is also a partner in the fine dining Hengist Restaurant and the Plough, a gastropub, both in Kent. Richard Phillips at Chapel Down, the award-winning vineyard, is his latest venture.
Oddfellows’ commercial director Izzy Grey said: “We have known Richard for some time and have always been more than impressed with his modern take on British and European cooking.
“He is a very hard working chef as well as being a real up and coming celebrity.”
Launched last summer, Oddfellows transformed a landmark 17th century guild house into a stunning £3.25m venue.
It is expanding into a street-level 40-cover informal restaurant, serving breakfast, lunch, afternoon teas and dinner, planned for September, in premises formerly occupied by wedding shop Duraine Jones, which has moved just a few doors’ away.
