Having first discovered her passion for food by chance during an evening cooking class at 15, Hope built her foundations at Blackpool and Fylde College and local restaurant Twelve. It was the team at Twelve who encouraged her to develop her career further by moving to the Lake District.
Culinary Journey and Future Goals
She went on to develop her skillset through the Simon Rogan Academy, gaining experience across L’Enclume, Rogan & Co and Henrock. She has now worked for Simon Rogan for three years and is currently demi chef de partie at Henrock by Simon Rogan.
Hope enjoys her role at Henrock and is keen to further hone her skills and progress in her career there. She also has a dream to one day make culinary education accessible to everyone, especially children and adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. She highlights how cooking can feel intimidating to some and wants to be able to break down the barriers surrounding it, ultimately making cooking accessible to people of all ages, backgrounds and challenges.
Final Menu and Foraged Ingredients
In the final Hope will showcase her love of foraging, with foraged bronze fennel and sea herbs accompanying her cured salmon starter. For her main course, she is excited to be cooking venison loin, haggis, and tartare with chanterelles, radish taco, preserved potato Aberdeen roll and an English vermouth sauce. Aberdeen rolls were a family treat for Hope growing up and she is looking forward to putting her own spin on this Scottish classic. She is aiming to keep her custard tart dessert simple, with accompaniments including cherry boiron, blackened cherries and salted cherries to add depth and cut through the sweetness of the tart.
Inspiration and Development
Hope cites her current head chef Mark McCabe’s passion for sustainability, fermentation and fresh produce as being a big inspiration. She says it is amazing to be a part of a team that’s really pushing to make a difference by eliminating single use plastic. The experience has shaped her culinary approach, which she describes as trying to be as sustainable as possible, using foraged ingredients and fermentation. She adds that she hasn’t found her own signature style as a chef yet but feels that the YNCOTY competition process will be extremely valuable in helping her develop this.
Excited to see what happens next, Hope says she has found the competition to be an extremely rewarding process that has really pushed her outside of her comfort zone.