James Stocks, head chef at Scotland’s Balbirnie House in Fife, has resigned from the hotel after it emerged he embellished his CV.

The chef was suspended from his position earlier this month, after he was exposed for faking large parts of his career and alleging false senior positions at some of the UK’s top restaurants.

Stocks, who ran his eponymous restaurant at the Orangery, claimed close relationships with Michelin-starred chefs Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay and Michel Roux Jr.

Stocks claimed to have a close friendship with Marco Pierre White, alleging regular contact after he was junior sous chef at his three-Michelin-starred Oak Room in London between 1999 and 2002.

But White told the Daily Record “that’s a lie,” adding “I just don’t know him”.

Stocks also said he’d been a sous chef at the two-Michelin-starred Le Gavroche but chef-patron Michel Roux Jr denied there was any truth to this claim.

“He may have worked in the veg section or somewhere but he was never a sous or junior sous,” Roux said.

Furthermore Stocks claims to have been poached from Le Gavroche by Gordon Ramsay to work at his eponymous three-Michelin-starred restaurant on London’s Royal Hospital Road.

However, staff at the Chelsea eaterie said there are no records of him ever having been employed there.

A spokesman for Balbirnie House, in Markinch, said: "Chef James Stocks has resigned with immediate effect, for personal reasons. We confirm that the split from Balbirnie House is amicable and we wish James all the very best for the future."

Read the full story in the Daily Record here >>

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By Kerstin Kühn

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