When Tom Naylor-Leyland, heir to the vast Fitzwilliam Estate, said he wanted to make sleepy Malton into Yorkshire’s Food Capital, oh how we smiled.
Now there’s no stopping him. With a food market held on the second Saturday of the month (the next one 12th June), that would rival a French country market, the annual Malton Food Lovers Festival (24/25 May) and his expensive upgrading of the Talbot Hotel, the project is not to be scoffed at.
The Fitzwilliam Estate stall at Malton Food Festival
His next venture is the Malton Cookery School. As if there weren’t enough cookery schools, but this one is keenly priced with a kids course for just £15, a men’s class for £45 and a full day’s shopping and cooking course at £145. Certainly cheaper than anything else around.
The Cookery School director is Gilly Robinson, who I knew as the less scary tutor with the formidable Rosemary Shrager at the Swinton Park Cookery School, so it’s in capable and approachable hands.
The school, in a converted congregational chapel in Saville Street, opens on 16th May with a relaxed cookery demonstration and chat by the Talbot Hotel’s head chef Craig Aitchison, followed by a convivial dinner ‘round the kitchen table’. Coming up throughout May are Food for the Family; Picnics for the Races; and hourly demonstrations over the Festival weekend.
The school opens on 16th May. For more details www.maltoncookeryschool.co.uk or to book a place call: 01653 639096 or email [email protected]