James Petrie to join The Ledbury
The year-long post will see Petrie work closely with The Ledbury’s head chef and co-owner Brett Graham on all areas of development, starting with the creation of a new dessert menu for the two-Michelin-starred restaurant.
Graham said: “We are delighted to have Jocky on board at The Ledbury. We have known each other for many years and have always shared ideas, but we never found the right time or circumstance to work together properly.
“I initially approached Jocky to discuss him coming in for a few weeks to work on dishes for the new dessert menu, but once we sat down to talk, there was such an explosion of ideas between us that we decided to give ourselves a year to explore them all."
Big fan
Petrie, who will take up his new position on 1 April 2014, said he has always been a ‘big fan’ of the Ledbury.
“I've eaten there regularly since it opened and have been impressed watching it progress over the years,” he said.
“It is already one of the best and most successful restaurants in the world, so coming in at this level and finding somewhere new to take it to will be a unique, difficult and exciting challenge."
Petrie trained at Perth College before joining the Fat Duck in 2002 as a pastry chef. He spent eleven years working for Heston Blumenthal at the three Michelin-starred restaurant before handing in his resignation last June in order to ‘explore other opportunities’.
The Ledbury has won numerous awards and was named the UK’s top restaurant for three years running at the National Restaurant Awards. It joined the San Pellegrino list of Top 50 Restaurants in the World as the highest new entry at number 34 in 2011, and rocketed up 20 places in 2012 to win the highest climber award.
Simon Jenkins joins Marcus Wareing
In other appointments news, chef Simon Jenkins has been appointed group executive pastry chef for Marcus Wareing Restaurants.
Jenkins, who worked with Marcus Wareing at Pétrus in 2005-2006, has 20 years’ experience working with some of the UK’s top chefs including Michel Roux Senior, Raymond Blanc, John Campbell and John Burton-Race.
He has been tasked with defining the pastry offering across Wareing’s portfolio of restaurants, tweaking menus and implementing new systems as well as training staff.
“Simon’s depth of knowledge, creativity and flair firmly puts him as an industry leader in his craft,” said Wareing.
“His ability to seamlessly create a pastry brand that suits any level leaves him peerless in the UK – he is a true one off when it comes to pastry. I look forward to working with him to create an exciting and unique pastry offering across the group, along with inspiring and recruiting the next generation of industry talent to our restaurants.”
