Home Leeds: Award-winning chef Liz Cottam on why she's taking a big risk with her Brewery Wharf restaurant

With purses squeezed and bills soaring, the full breadth of the Leeds food scene is feeling the impact - from neighbourhood pubs to her Michelin-recommended HOME. 

But instead of dropping prices and quality, the award-winning Leeds chef is taking an unconventional approach, and a risk, injecting more theatre and more creativity into her Brewery Wharf restaurant and launching one of her most daring menus yet.

“There’s been a noticeable downward trend in business over the last year,” Liz told the Yorkshire Evening Post. 

“Everyone I speak to, whether it’s a Michelin-star restaurant or a local restaurant or pub near me in Saltaire, they’re all saying the same thing. 

“The economy, the cost of living, it’s all having a super negative effect on everyone. And I don’t think there’s enough acknowledgement of what’s going on.

“To be completely honest, I’m not sure we’ll make it through the year. But the reason we are still here is because we're an extremely professionally-run business - not all restaurants have the financial robustness and business experience and acumen that my team and I have. 

“I’ve considered changing the concept. But I got into this industry because I love the creativity of what we do, how special everything is that we create. That, and the team I have around me, is what inspires me. We’re together because we care.

“It’s not really about the Michelin star or whether we get a fantastic review in The Times. It’s about loving what we do every day, and working with people we genuinely want to be with.

“So I’m resisting the temptation to put on those discounts, to stop doing the tasting menu, to completely renovate the restaurant into something else. 

“I’ve decided to do the opposite of that and I’m making things more creative instead.”

Celebrating the dishes that hold a special place in her heart, Liz launched a new signature tasting menu - ‘Stuck in the Past’ - earlier this month. Promising comforting and familiar flavours, it’s a modern twist on some of her all-time favourites, delivered in surprising ways.

In contrast, HOME’s second new menu, ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, is designed to take diners out of their comfort zone completely. The secret interactive menu explores how sight, smell and taste change the way we dine - and diners don’t know what the dishes are until they land on the table.

Liz said: “It turns up people’s senses - they’re not just eating and drinking while having a conversation, they’re really concentrating on everything. It’s bringing a different dimension to the meal and trying to be as playful as possible.

“My restaurant has always been somewhere where you come to forget what’s happening in the world. 

“We’re being more theatrical with what we’re doing and it’s a way to step away from the normal world. HOME isn’t about a meal and fuel, it’s about something much more special.

“Authenticity and credibility are so important to me. I want to stay true to what I set out to do at the beginning.”

Liz ran a digital marketing and communications business before appearing on MasterChef in 2016, making the semi-finals of the competition. She opened HOME a year later with fellow chef Mark Owens, before the pair founded Kirkgate Market’s first gastropub in 2017.

The latter restaurant has since moved to Mustard Wharf - Liz’s vision to transform the market didn’t come into fruition - and The Owl has recently gone back to its roots with more affordable dining options. 

“It’s been really well received,” Liz added.

“It didn’t feel like we were changing anything, it just felt like we were adding back in some of the thing’s we’d left behind at Kirkgate - the brunch menu, going back to being more a la carte. Things that were still in the heart and soul and DNA of The Owl.”

Liz is frank about the challenges of the last 12 months - energy bills have soared beyond belief and the cost of ingredients has rocketed. It was a challenge that her third restaurant, CORA in Boston Spa, was unable to overcome. The Michelin Guide restaurant closed down last summer just two years after opening. 

And Leeds has lost its only Michelin star restaurant this year - Michael O’Hare closed The Man Behind The Curtain, and will reopen the “more accessible” Psycho Sandbar in its place next month.

Liz said: “The food is going to be phenomenal over there and I think he’ll put a really brilliant, individual twist on it. It will be magic and I’m really excited for it. 

“But I would hate them to stop doing the tasting experience. I don’t want tasting menus to be a thing of the past. I don’t think The Man Behind The Curtain got as much respect and love as it deserved.

“The tasting menu format isn’t something you’re meant to do every day, but it’s important to have that choice and that diversity. It puts Leeds on the map as a place where - if you’re serious about food - you’ve got somewhere credible and exciting to go.

“I want Leeds to be a place that caters for people who travel to the city. If you look at how successful the Copenhagen food scene has become, people travel from all over the world to go there - and for good reason.

“I want us to be taken seriously in Leeds. And for that, we need quality and we need diversity.”