Freemasons at Wiswell in Lancashire to become restaurant with rooms
The pub, the only one to feature in The Good Food Guide 2017's list of Top 50 Restaurants, will convert property next door to the restaurant into four rooms. The restaurant’s kitchen will also undergo and extensive refurb and extension.
As part of the refurb, there are plans to create a chef’s table that chef-proprietor Steven Smith says will be different to traditional chef’s tables and will instead be more like ‘a pub within the kitchen’.
“It is going to be a bit different,” he says. “It’s loosely termed a chef’s table as guests will still eat in the kitchen but it will be funky and cool with optics and beer all around. It will be like sitting in a pub for dinner rather than the old boring chef’s table just plonked in the middle of the kitchen.
“It’s about pushing myself and the business to be better.”
The move comes after four years of seeking planning permission for the accommodation, with the work expected to be completed by late spring or early summer.
Speaking of the accommodation, Smith adds: “We get asked by people where they can stay about 20 times a day, and at the moment we have to send them away. Adding rooms is a no brainer really.”
In addition, Smith hopes to turn another property in the village of Wiswell into a holiday let.
Freemasons at Wiswell has a string of accolades to its name. It was ranked 77th in this year’s Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards, and it has also made regular appearances on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, where it is currently number four. It was also named as one of Harden’s 2016 20 Top Sunday Roasts across the UK.
