Discover Chef Liz Cottam's Newest Countryside Restaurant Byre
Renowned chef and Leeds local Liz Cottam talks swapping city life for the Yorkshire countryside, and how she's finding joy again at new restaurant Byre
Her new venture, Byre, is near Bolton Abbey and has given the chef the chance to finally take things at her own pace. Leaving her beloved Leeds was difficult, but in the end was the right choice. ‘Being a Leeds girl born and bred, I’ve been a massive advocate of my city,’ she says. ‘I was really up for trying to put my best foot forward and trying to get other people to see it differently.’
Her previous restaurants Home, The Owl and Emba all paid homage to the city and were at its heart, but financial pressures became increasingly impossible to manage. ‘It’s just really difficult to have a restaurant of a certain quality and nature in the city,’ she explains. ‘I never wanted to leave the city centre, but these circumstances are real and try as hard as I did it just wasn’t going to stack up.’ The pressure took a toll on her own wellbeing. ‘At Emba I was working 100 hours a week. You just say, I need to keep this going, I need it for my staff, I need it because I love what I do. You just say yes to everything, and before you know it your health really deteriorates.’
It was time for Liz to take stock and re-evaluate what she wanted from her work. ‘I had to say to myself, look you’re a chef, you love what you do, but you can’t be doing it in the way you’ve been doing it because it just doesn’t work and it’s killing you,’ she explains. ‘I’m 50 years old and I think I need to start looking after myself. The first note to self was that I really wanted to be in a beautiful place where I could breathe, and where my creativity was at its height.’
In a full-circle moment, Liz rediscovered the old dairy farm that would become Byre just as she needed it, after first visiting the property years ago. ‘Timing is so important. I loved it but the timing wasn’t right [back then],’ she explains. Fast-forward to this year and Liz came across the building again by chance. ‘I just saw the whole place differently. I’d already made the decision in my head that I wanted to work somewhere that I could breathe and suddenly there was the solution in front of me.’
When we speak with Liz Byre is in its first weeks of service, with an emphasis on a slower, more communal approach to dining. ‘We don’t really have a traditional commercial kitchen, not compared to most high-end restaurants. I deliberately didn’t do that because I thought, this whole building does not want a big commercial kitchen with massive extractors,’ says Liz, who wanted to introduce cooking over fire to the space. Each room has its own oven from local heritage company ESSE. ‘Each room is brought to life by an atmosphere, not just cooking. Because they’re ovens rather than just big open barbecues, there’s a certain amount of control and quiet which is just perfect for me and my style. I want to be able to control things, I want things to be quiet and I want things to be a bit more me.’ Cooking here is an intimate affair, with time for Liz to explain dishes and interact with guests.
Life for Liz at the moment can be split between before and after Byre. ‘God, it’s night and day. It couldn’t be more different,’ she tells us. ‘I loved the people I worked with, I loved the food I created and I loved the guests, but working 100 hours in a building felt like a prison sentence. I’m not exaggerating. I was so committed to it that I didn’t feel like I could walk away,’ she continues, ‘to then come to Byre where I can enjoy the short drive to work. I’ll step outside and can hear the sheep. You sit outside and you breathe in the air. Lunchtimes for me involve going on an hour’s hike. It’s just so good for you.’
Byre’s ample space has given Liz the opportunity to get creative with what she offers, including outdoor experiences which make the most of the countryside, and intimate collaborative cooking sessions where guests have the chance to learn some kitchen fundamentals with Liz. ‘I really spend a lot of time talking about how to become an instinctive cook, which is someone who can look at a recipe and change it rather than just following it blindly,’ she explains. ‘It’s evolved from that mindset really where I’m revealing all the things that I wish I’d known when I was an ambitious cook.’ Other plans include outdoor dining experiences at nearby Bolton Abbey, on the local fells and a possible excursion to a local shooting lodge in autumn.
There’s lots of room for expansion too. The Byre Table Menu is currently served in the former milking parlour and barn dining rooms, but there’s plenty of scope besides. ‘We’ve got a lovely little old calf pen and that could be a farm shop,’ she says. ‘We’ve also got space for accommodation. I’d love to be able to renovate some of that and start adding some really beautiful but very simple places to stay when you come and visit us.’
For Liz, whose cooking has always been inspired by the Yorkshire landscape, Byre feels like coming home. ‘It feels special, and it feels different. I feel really good about it all. I haven’t put pressure on myself to do everything now,’ she explains. ‘That’s the difference about the way I’m approaching this and the way I would have done things before.
‘I think when you’re joyful about something, you’re not forcing it to be anything other than what it is and it happens at its own pace. Who the hell knows if it’s going to last forever? None of us really know, do we? I’m hoping more than any other restaurant that this one keeps going.’
