Leeds-based restaurant Home to reopen in July with ‘more experimental’ approach
The restaurant, which was launched by chefs Elizabeth Cottam and Mark Owens in 2017, will reopen on 31 July with the first menu created solely by Cottam. The move comes as the pair split their time across Home and their gastropub and dining room The Owl in Kirkgate Market where Owens will head up the kitchen.
Home previously changed its menu on a monthly basis but as part of the reopening it will move to a weekly changing format that the pair say will be the most experimental to date.
Under its reopening plans, service times will be adapted to reduce the amount of people in the dining room at one time, with earlier time slots and a couple of later time slots added.
The restaurant operation has also been restructured to reduce the number of staff required to serve each table and the team says it is in the process of creating some ‘clever and beautiful’ ways to clean tables and deliver cutlery.
“I ended last year promising myself that 2020 was going to be a great year,” says Cottam. “You can imagine how much it knocked the wind out of our sails when Covid landed and closed us down and how terrified I was by the possibility of not just this year, but all of our future Home years not happening?”
“Once I took a deep breath and got a hold of myself, I started to work on plans for using lockdown strategically, to get better and come back so much stronger than if we had stayed open.”
Cottam says that plans to open a number of other sites in the city are still progressing despite the issue surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic and that dealings with one location had “progressed very quickly”.
The duo had previously announced that they would be ‘four disparate foodie concepts’ together, including an intimate chef’s table-style dining experience, the first of which became The Owl.
“We’ll know over the next couple of weeks if this is likely to happen this year,” she says.
“It’s a big one and I’m doing everything I can to make it happen.”
