Simon Gueller
Simon Gueller
Yorkshire’s epicureans have a lot to thank Simon Gueller for. Here’s a chef who creates tasteful dishes with local tastes; who produces refined, lovely-looking food in an elegant setting.
Gueller has proved his worth as head chef of three Michelin starred restaurants, the most recent being the Box Tree in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, until he sold it in 2019.
After a stint in London, Gueller became head chef and proprietor of Millers in Harrogate at just twenty-four years old, where he cut his teeth as a cook-cum-restaurateur and gained 3 AA rosettes to boot. Gueller then took up tenure as head chef at Rascasse in Leeds where he furthered his reputation and gained his first Michelin star.
After leaving Rascasse, Gueller’s eponymously entitled Leeds restaurant won a Michelin star and Yorkshire Restaurant of the Year 2002. In 2004, Gueller and his front-of-house wife Rena bowed out and took the lease on the Box Tree in Ilkley, reviving its fortunes and recapturing a Michelin star, which it held until 2019. Shortly after it lost its star Simon returned to cook in the kitchen, but then decided to sell the business and focus his efforts elsewhere.
Classic French cuisine is Gueller's mainstay, but his cooking is also highly contemporary. Favouring the ‘less is more’ approach, over the years he’s developed a purity of purpose that’s resulted in poised dishes such as line-caught sea bass, red pepper, tomato risotto and courgette and red onion petals, and Yorkshire duck breast with crispy skin and foie gras mousse.
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