The Michelin-starred chef talks seasonal eating, and how to present seasonal food without being preachy.

For more than two decades, Ms Frances Atkins, chef-patron of beloved restaurant-with-rooms The Yorke Arms, has dazzled visitors to Ramsgill, Yorkshire, with her delicious, seasonal and locally sourced food, which has seen her hold a Michelin star since 2003. It was to some alarm, therefore, that she announced in the summer of this year that she had put The Yorke Arms up for sale, claiming she needed a new challenge and a new project. Thankfully, since then, things have taken a different turn: Ms Atkins has embarked on a partnership with businessman and entrepreneur Mr Jonathan Turner, who has not only invested in The Yorke Arms, but is working with Ms Atkins to take the restaurant’s style and techniques to other local venues, with the aim of promoting an appreciation of Yorkshire food. Below, she explains her culinary philosophy, and why her Yorkshire surroundings are so integral to the way she works.

I’ve always worked from the country. I need to be in a country environment. I was in London for three years and the kitchen was in the basement. And it just about killed any inspiration I ever had. So I need to be in the country. I react very well to the seasons. And that’s how I cook. It’s a spontaneous thing that’s built in me.

You have to be careful today how you talk about nature. It’s been so overdone. Chefs wandering along beaches and looking at a stone, and eating a bit of moss from the stone… all that rubbish. It really is over the top. But we grow all our own food, for a start, and we’re organic without being over the top about it. If your natural ingredient is pure, then, really, cooking isn’t very hard. From the start it’s just about great respect for the ingredient. Which is another thing chefs whack on about. But it really is about that.

I love game. When game season comes, I’m very much at home, and I’m at home with game because grouse is just eating heather. When you prepare a grouse, if you look at what its last meal was... it sounds pretty awful but if you do… it’s just little heather buds. That’s all. It’s a natural flavour and it’s pure. If it’s beautifully prepared and put on the plate and the actual form is good, you don’t have to do anything to it.

We forage for ingredients, but that comes naturally. Again, we don’t have to write big articles about it. It’s embarrassing, really. We get sick to death of it. You get absolutely bombarded here, in this area, with wild garlic in the spring. It becomes almost too much. Everyone says, “Oh, it’s so wonderful.” And it is wonderful. But only if used correctly. Now, we’re using lots of sweet cicely – we’re using what looks good on the plate and is also growing outside. It’s a question of just combining these ingredients with others to make them interesting.

I plan dishes as a journey around the plate. The food is arranged the way you’re going to eat it. But again, you can’t go through the pretension of telling somebody how to eat their food. I hate that. I’ve been to restaurants where some awful waiter comes along and says, “Eat that first, then that and then that.” I think you should eat exactly as you want to. It’s a natural, sort of expressive thing. But you can help through the presentation. And it’s important to me that that part is functional. When people stuff flowers all over the place that you can’t eat, what’s the point?

Historically, Yorkshire is known for robust food. And there’s the idea that Yorkshire people look after their pockets quite well. Therefore they want big, substantial platefuls. But that’s changing. People are much more interested in their food. But they still want to feel satisfied, as we all do! When I first came back to Yorkshire from London, I’d been working at that time with basically fish and vegetarian foods, very little red meat. And I started doing that here, and everybody was saying, “Hey, where’s the meat? Where’s the roast?” And I thought, “Oh my God, big mistake!” And then I thought – I've got to produce a bit of good solid meat, which maybe goes with the terroir around here. Or maybe even goes with the lifestyle. But that is what is expected. And that is what I find myself eating now, too.

Michelin stars encourage people to explore and find places like ours. When you’re planning a very special occasion or you’re thinking, “I want to go away somewhere nice and chill out,” the star says that even if it might not be to your liking, yes, this food is good. And that’s Michelin’s secret. You get out the guide, and you go anywhere in that guide and you will never have bad food. In a lot of other guides it’s the opinion of the journalist who has written it.

Keeping our Michelin star is something of a huge worry every year. But I think it’s about maintaining your personal standard. There’s no secret to it. That’s all it is. You know if you’ve not done such a good piece of work. You know yourself. And you have to make sure you don’t do bad pieces of work, basically. It’s caring about every dish that goes out.

**MR PORTER met Ms Frances Atkin from Michelin-starred The Yorke Arms as part of an exceptional drive around the UK’s best driving routes with Michelin and Supercar Driver. To find out more about Michelin, follow @Michelin on Instagram. **