Derek and Nicola Cheetham, owners of the Tulketh hotel in Preston, Lancashire, open their first restaurant, the Park, on 11 May after a year of refurbishment and preparation.
"We're aiming for a great restaurant with rooms, rather than a hotel with a restaurant. There's quite a difference in the two approaches," said Nicola.
To help achieve this they have appointed Leigh Myers as restaurant head chef. He was head chef at the Atrium restaurant, St Anne's, Lancashire, and was recently a national finalist for both the Roux Scholarship and the Gordon Ramsay Scholar competitions.
Myers has worked at Chez Nico, London; the Devonshire Arms, Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire; and Paul Heathcote's Longridge restaurant.
The Park restaurant is named after William Park, a partner in Park & Sons, civil engineers and estate agents, who built the house that forms the main part of the hotel in 1903. The hotel itself will shortly be renamed the Park.