Catalyst Years and Cooking’s ‘Big Bang’

It was also at about this time that Patrick and Sonia Stevenson bought the Horn of Plenty near Tavistock in the West Country while at the other end of England, at the Box Tree Cottage in Ilkley, Malcolm Reid and Colin Long, two ex-rag traders with tastes as astute in the aesthetic as they were in the gastronomic, had already established a remarkable restaurant which was far ahead of its years. Here were two more amateurs who had eaten their way around France and who, in effect, introduced nouvelle cuisine to Yorkshire before it took root in London. Trail-blazers in their day, by 1977 they had won two Michelin stars – a distinction which they shared only with the French-run kitchens of the Connaught, Le Gavroche and the Waterside Inn at Bray. Moreover, the Michelin double, let alone the triple, is a culinary Holy Grail which has persistently eluded every other Brit-run restaurant since.