Acclaimed chef Peter Neville’s new restaurant and accommodation project, a husband and wife business, is a true homecoming in its most raw and organic form, discovers Bethan Andrews
The Homestead Kitchen in Goathland, a restaurant and small accommodation offering recently opened by renowned chef Peter Neville and his wife Cecily Fearnley, is already making a name for itself for its organic and creative approach to food and hospitality. And I can’t say it comes as a surprise either, given the solid reputation Neville built up during his 12 years as head chef and co-owner at the Pheasant Hotel in Harome.
Having been a chef for over 20 years, Peter has worked under two Michelin starred chefs, at both the famous Star Inn at Harome under Andrew Pern, and as head chef at the world-renowned Hibiscus under Claude Bosi. But for Fearnley, setting up the Homestead Kitchen is particularly special because, as the name would suggest, it marks a return to the village in which she grew up. It’s also now the family home, for themselves and their two sons, and it is important to them that they create a real feeling of being welcomed and hosted when you choose to dine or stay there.
And, the premise of the project? Over the coming years they hope to create a flourishing and vibrant space: growing their own family, growing on the land, and growing in the community, too. With other high-calibre restaurants having come and gone in this remote part of the moors, there’s been high praise for the fact that the husband and wife team are making this their home and are in it for the long-haul.
“For both of us, we want to create something that is for local people, as well as being for tourists. I know how important it is for this village to keep the core for regulars,” says Fearnley. “We wanted to make somewhere where people feel connected. It’s also about creating a better balance in regards to Pete as a chef, the hours and our growing family – we can now eat our family meals together every day!”
The family element seeps into everything at The Homestead, with all of their staff currently residing in the village too. “It’s lovely because they already have that connection with the regulars who visit us,” says Fearnley. To take it one step further, Peter Hall, who is Neville’s right-hand man in the kitchen, worked with him 15 years’ ago at the Star Inn at Harome. Their oldest son, Wilfred, even takes a little space in the kitchen at times too, where he loves to learn about what they are cooking and what each ingredient is.
This idea of learning the land and celebrating the local area is at the heart of The Homestead. “We’re in the process of creating a Kitchen Garden, where we’ll be growing our own produce,” explains Fearnley. “We want to put back as much as we are taking to the local area, and that will also create jobs for local people.”
Neville is really keen on foraging, so they collect produce from the moors too and have recently created an edible hedgerow. “I don’t like sitting at a desk and I love practical things,” he smiles. “I’m really interested in science and the outdoors, so it ties in nicely.”
When it comes to the food offerings at The Homestead Kitchen, what does Neville want to bring to the people who visit? “We’re trying to keep the menu small, so that we can keep it focused around local ingredients,” he says. “We want people to get a taste of what the region is known for. We’re very close to Whitby so we have all the fish from there. Smoked fish is very big, so we try smoked cod and kippers in a new way, one which people might not have tried before.”
One thing he’s sure of is that he doesn’t want to become a tasting menu only, destination restaurant that you go to once every few years. Despite not having moved too far from The Pheasant, Neville is revelling in finding new suppliers from the Goathland side of the moor, such as his organic cheesemaker from ten miles down the road.
There’s a real organic simplicity to the approach. “Once we start growing more vegetables, we want to get as much as we can out of the garden. It’s all about finding the best ingredients, and we want the food to look like the food that it is,” he says. “We don’t want to make the food look like a work of art, but it be unrecognisable when you say what it is. The concept is simple, but there’s a lot of hard work that goes behind it.”
There’s a sustainability aspect that underscores all of this, too. “Restaurants are notoriously terrible for their environmental impact, so I’m currently looking at all the systems,” explains Fearnley. “We try to avoid food waste with the way that the menu works, and focus on seasonality. We only source European wines, for example, as we’re trying to cut down on food mileage. We’re trying to put back to the planet here, instead of just being about consumption.”
