New head chef to lead award-winning kitchen

Dec 28 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

WITH head chef Mark Bennett at the helm, Liverpool’s Malmaison claimed the title Best Restaurant in the City and won its first rosette for fine food within months of opening.

So when Mr Bennett revealed he was leaving to lead the kitchen at a new unique boutique hotel in Chester, managers at the upmarket Princess Dock hotel needed to find a worthy replacement.

They needed someone who could continue to set an impressive pace - trailblazing and revolutionising diners’ eating experience in the city.

They found Paul Smith.

The Roux brother-trained 32-year-old not only helped head the celebrity chefs’ double Michelin starred Le Gavroche restaurant in London, but was instrumental in setting up the kitchen in the Sofitel St James - the first brand new hotel to be opened in the capital for 15 years.

Le Gavroche, owned by legendary chefs Michel and Albert Roux, was in 1982, the very first restaurant in Britain to receive a Michelin star, and Mr Smith now hopes his French inspired cooking will set Liverpool’s diner’s palates on fire and secure a second rosette for the Malmaison brasserie within months.

The incoming and outgoing chefs are now working together in the kitchen in a transition period before Mr Bennett, 35, officially hands over the head chef mantle on New Year’s Eve, catering for the exclusive 86-cover brasserie.

Both say they are enjoying learning from each other and excited for the new challenges that each will face in 2008.

Mr Bennett, who lives at Waterloo Quay, said: “The plan was always for me to leave the Malmaison Liverpool after around a year to take on an operational role within the company, but then this opportunity to head the kitchen at the new Oddfellows Boutique Hotel came up.

“After eight years with the company it is bitter sweet to be leaving - especially when this kitchen has been mine ever since it opened and has done so well.

“But I am really excited about Oddfellows and now feel like I am just here as a support mechanism for Paul.

“It will be good to work together over the Christmas period.

“There is nothing like learning how a new kitchen operates during the busiest time of the year and with my official last day being New Year’s Eve I intend to go out with a bang.”

Mr Smith said: “Mark is rightly very proud and protective of what he has set up here in Liverpool and we are going through a big hand over to make sure that the transition is smooth and enables us to push the restaurant further forward.

“The Malmaison’s style really appealed to me and I am so excited to be here in Liverpool during 2008.

“This is an exciting time for me, for Mark, the Malmaison and the city.”

carolineinnes