With a new menu, new chef and a new meat supplier, Weston Park’s restaurant is gearing up for an autumn to remember.
The Granary is celebrating nature’s most bountiful season in style. Rob Perez has joined the kitchen team as senior sous chef, while Market Drayton-based Buttercross has been named as the restaurant’s new meat supplier.
With a new menu which combines the best local produce with the rich seasonal harvest from Weston Park’s own walled gardens and grounds, autumn at the Granary is set to be a real treat for the senses.
Head chef Anna Moore said: “I am delighted to welcome Rob to the team as my senior sous chef, and he is doing a great job leading the brigade in the kitchen. Rob joins us at an exciting time, and I can’t wait for diners to sample the fabulous seasonal delights he has created for the autumn menu.
“I’m also really happy to have Buttercross on board as our meat supplier, as they offer us superb quality with genuine provenance. They rear their own pork and work with local farmers to source the best local beef and lamb – and their farm is, literally, just up the road from Weston!
“Buying local, reducing our food miles and knowing where our meat comes from are things which we value greatly and which reflect our ongoing approach to sustainable food, which is complemented by our commitment to using as much produce from the estate itself as possible.”
Rob has always worked in hospitality, from Sunday shifts in the British Airways staff canteen when he was a student to a pop-up restaurant in the exclusive surroundings of Harrods.
He spent two and a half years at the Domaine Gayada in the south of France and worked in top London kitchens such as the Kingsway Hotel in Holborn, the Pelham Hotel in South Kensington and at the Gherkin, where he was sous chef.
Rob has created the new autumn menu and has used the walled garden produce as a starting point. The harvest includes plums, beetroot, apples, kale and cauliflower, which Rob has used to create tasty meals like confit duck with pickled plums, cauliflower croquettes with a mornay sauce, goat’s cheese mousse with apple and beetroot, plum fool, vanilla cheesecake with caramelized apples and a beetroot brownie with coffee syrup.
Buttercross produce a full range of meat for some of the finest chefs in the Midlands, as well as a retail range sold in shops across the region. As well as butcher’s cuts of meat, Buttercross uses traditional methods to produce sausage, dry cured bacon and cooked hams in its EU licensed factory which, since 2019, has been certified 100 per cent gluten free.
Andrea Webster, Weston Park’s marketing manager, said: “Our walled garden is brimming with fabulous produce at the moment, and we are looking forward to all the tasty dishes Anna and Rob can create with it.”
CAPTION: Head chef Anna Moore with new arrival Rob Perez.
