Ladette to lady, or should I say (now Malton’s) Gilly's, has been a lady ever since her arrival in the area back in 2013. It was back then when she was invited to our market town to help put it on the map as Yorkshire’s Food Capital along with David Macdonald and Tom Naylor Leyland.
Tom had the brilliant idea of a cookery school in Malton, and David (then, manager of The Talbot Hotel) having heard Gilly was looking at a new cookery school further down south due to her missing teaching so much, knew she’d be the ideal candidate to help get it up and running. A phone call later and an informal meeting over lunch and that was it, Gilly was onboard, so in May 2014 with help of these two fellows, they opened a pop up cookery school during Malton’s food lovers’ festival.
With the 15 day pop up cookery school, on Saville Street, being a raging success and so many people being eager to visit, it was decided that in September 2014 the cookery school would open 4 days a week. From there the school has gone from strength to strength, since then the school has relocated to it’s newly refurbished premises to be nearer Talbot Court, just off Market Street and there have been new additions to the staffing too with Debbie Raw joining the team. This doesn’t surprise me really, Gilly is passionate about creating honest, fresh and quality food from scratch and being the founder of her own private chef company, THE COOK she has a lot of experience to go with this. Gilly has cooked for both famous and infamous people in her years but says one of her best experiences was when she was given the chance by Rosemary Shrager (TV chef from Ladette’s to Lady) to teach in Masham, at her cookery school. These two worked in harmony together for over 10 years, so I think we can all see why Gilly was the number one candidate to run the cookery school in Malton.
Sadly, since last Friday due to government regulation Gilly and Debbie have had to close their doors to the public and Gilly’s catering for private dinner parties has had to go on hold for the foreseeable future; nevertheless, Gilly and Debbie are not using this as a a negative though, she believes good can come of this terrible situation. Gilly speaks fondly of the local community, saying, “Malton will still be Yorkshire’s food capital but with a gold star from the community for the wonderful way it has pulled together. It’s what we do, the estate/Visit Malton and our loyal customers all work well in all situations and these next few weeks will prove this to all.”
The time out of the kitchen professionally is giving both Gilly and Debbie the chance to experiment, reflect and plan. Together, (at different dwellings of course) these two are cooking up a storm, so watch this place when we are all free again! Check out what the pair have to offer here.
Photography by Fiona Bielby @ Anoif Photography