Kenny aims to be Michelin man again

Aug 2 2008 by Jane Hall, The Journal

TOP chef Kenny Atkinson has arrived back in his home region to take over the helm at Seaham Hall’s White Room restaurant – and walked into the biggest challenge of his award-winning career.

The 31-year-old has just a month to ensure the acclaimed eaterie retains the North East’s only Michelin star – and in the process regain his own culinary crown. The White Room has been without a head chef since Steve Smith left in February this year to move to the award-winning Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire.

Now Kenny, who only took over the kitchen at the White Room this week, has until the beginning of September to convince the Michelin judging panel that the County Durham restaurant is worthy of keeping its coveted one-star status.

Managers at Seaham Hall are confident Kenny is the man for the job – and studying his track record it is easy to see why. Earlier this year he hit the headlines after bringing the Scilly Isles their first Michelin star in only his first full season at the Tean Restaurant on St Martin’s, 28 miles off the Cornish coast.

And while Kenny admits he has been thrown in at the deep end, he says he won’t buckle under the pressure of keeping the Michelin gastronomy flag flying for the North East. “I have always put myself under pressure to reach certain targets, so this is no different. It is up to me to cope with it. But I have spoken to the people at the Michelin Guide and told them I was leaving Tean and coming to Seaham, and they have said they are going to leave me alone until the end of August or early September, which is the Michelin judging cut-off point.

“That has helped lift the pressure a little, and while I have a lot to do, it gives me a bit more time. There hasn’t been a chef here since February and I need to build up a new team. I admit I would be devastated on a personal level if, come next January when they announce who the Michelin winners are, I haven’t got one for the White Room.

“But I am confident the Michelin people will be coming knowing what I did at Tean and see the potential. If we do lose the Michelin star, it will be hard to accept, but at the end of the day I do need to be realistic. The problem is when you lose a star, people think it means the restaurant is going downhill, but this can be a bit false as it can just mean something as simple as a change of chef. You are still going to get a good meal at the present time.”

Kenny won his Michelin star at the Tean for his locally-sourced modern British dishes – a winning formula he intends to bring to the White Room as he puts his own stamp on the menu.

Under Michelin rules, however, the star stays with the restaurant, not the chef. So both the White Room and the Tean will retain their Michelin status until the new guide is published in early 2009.

It’s all a long way from Newcastle’s historic Grainger Market where Kenny worked as a 16-year-old barrow boy, having left school with no qualifications and no hope.

Born and raised in Fenham, he caught the culinary bug while working in his uncle’s hotel in Gateshead. Having worked in some of the UK’s top hotels, he moved to St Martin’s with his wife, Abbie, 27, and son Aaron, now two, in 2006.

Back in the North East with his family and currently renting a house in Holystone, North Tyneside, Kenny is already meeting local producers as he decides how he is going to revolutionise his diners’ eating experience.

“My mantra is quality ingredients, simplicity and flavour. I also believe in the ‘Wow’ factor. I want people to be blown away by what I do.

“I am very much looking forward to showing the people of the North East what I am about.”

Food lovers unable to make the journey to Seaham Hall, however, can find out what makes Kenny special on August 30 when he heads up a list of North East celebrity chefs giving cookery demonstrations at The Journal Taste 2 festival in association with Tesco. The event at Macdonald Linden Hall Hotel, Golf and Country Club at Longhorsley near Morpeth, Northumberland, promises to be the biggest food and drink festival ever held in the region with around 100 producers signed up. Kenny says: “I am really looking forward to the event and the chance to meet so many local suppliers in one place, and being able to share my love of quality food with the wider public.

“This will be the biggest cookery demonstration I have ever done, but I will be re-creating the ‘Wow’ factor I believe in with a couple of dishes that look good, look exciting and use quality local ingredients.”