In the peripatetic world of professional chefs, Hywel Jones is something of an anomaly. Since 2004, he’s remained as executive chef of Lucknam Park, one of the UK’s finest country house hotels that’s set in a 500-acre listed estate just outside of Bath. In 2017, the hotel’s fine dining Park restaurant was renamed in his honour as Restaurant Hywel Jones by Lucknam Park, where he continues to hold a Michelin star, as he has done every year since 2006. He also oversees the hotel’s Brasserie restaurant and helped open the hotel’s cookery school in 2012. Newport born Jones very nearly joined the Royal Navy but instead went to catering college in Cardiff and has gone on to work with some of the biggest names in British gastronomy including Nico Ladenis and Marco Pierre White. He trained with David Nicholls (who he says is his greatest inspiration) at the Royal Garden Hotel, he worked as Peter Kromberg’s junior sous chef at legendary London restaurant Le Souffle and was senior sous chef to Stephen Terry at Oliver Peyton’s era-defining 90’s restaurant Coast. Before joining Lucknam, he amassed critical acclaim and accolades as head chef at Foliage at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (where he earned his first Michelin star), Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy restaurant in Notting Hill and Lola’s in Islington. The Telegraph has described Jones’s food at Lucknam Park as ‘superb’, while Harper’s Bazaar said that eating his signature tasting menu was ‘an unforgettable experience’. Created from locally sourced ingredients, including herbs from Lucknam Park’s own extensive kitchen garden, dishes served in the opulent dining room of the 18th century Palladian mansion such as fillet of Wiltshire beef, oxtail, smoked potato, grelot onion and watercress and his signature Roundway Hill pork ‘two ways’ with roast duck liver, butternut and apple reflect Jones’s preference for classical flavour combinations, presented with precision and elegance on the plate. Restaurant Hywel Jones by Lucknam Park holds three AA rosettes and is rated 4/5 for food by Harden’s Guide. In 2007, Jones was awarded Hotel Chef of the Year at the 2007 Hotel Catey Awards and is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts and patron of the Newport Food Festival. In 2011, he was a heat winner of the BBC’s Great British Menu series.