Why You Need to Visit Legacy at The Grand This Summer
The Grand, York's restaurant Legacy is the jewel in its culinary crown
Tell us about your respective roles at Legacy.
Kevin: As executive chef at The Grand my role includes managing Legacy.
Ahmed: As head chef I look after the day-to-day happenings in the kitchen, keeping a close eye on our team whilst working side by side. On the creative side, myself and Kevin discuss dishes before getting them finalised.
Kevin: Exactly, I am bringing my experience into Legacy now – influencing menu development, sourcing ingredients, recipe creation and implementation of menu.
What inspires your cooking?
Kevin: For me it’s simple – locality and region. Utilising the produce we have immediately around us and using the freshest ingredients.
Ahmed: I have to agree with Kevin, but I’d like to add that I take a lot of inspiration from my travels too. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing people over the years and found myself picking up a few things that have helped me create some amazing plates. I’ve always found cooking gives me a certain level of freedom to express myself that I haven’t found anywhere else. And of course, to reiterate Kevin’s point – ingredients! We as chefs tend to get really excited when a certain season comes back around and we’ve been waiting for it and we can’t wait to get our hands on the produce (rhubarb for instance). Last year we started talking about dishes for rhubarb in early November and when the season finally did begin, in the new year, we got all giddy and excited to try all these ideas we’ve been itching to do.
What makes Legacy stand out from the crowd?
Ahmed: Our fantastic location is a start! We’re situated in a building that has so much history behind it. In the hotel, we focus a lot on our five-star hospitality. It’s very important to us to make sure that this leads into the restaurant but without making anyone feel like they don’t belong there. ‘Yorkshire hospitality’ we like to call it. Our main ethos is sustainability, locality and seasonality. We lead heavily with these and try to express this across all our menus.
Kevin: At Legacy, as much as possible, we try to respect the history and culture of York. We are doing this in the way we have designed and presented the menu, and by using most of our products from the Yorkshire region and closest seas around. I feel that we need to give something back to this city for what it has managed and achieved over the years … all of the people, the generations of development.
What’s new and exciting for 2024?
Kevin: The newly launched menu and concept! It’s a hybrid tasting menu, and we have come up with three pathways for our guests to choose - STONE, WATER or STEEL. The routes are named to reflect key moments in York’s history and helps us illustrate the options within the overall tasting menu. It’s buildable like our history here in York, meaning each pathway is more advanced, more elevated than the next.
Ahmed: It’s a very exciting period for us as we’ve moved from the traditional fine-dining ‘set menu’ to the hybrid menu where the diner is given a lot more choice and more autonomy in their experience.
Kevin: With this menu there is much more flexibility than a traditional set menu, providing a lot of variety to each guest – you can visit Legacy multiple times and eat a different menu on each occasion by making different choices or following another path. Plus, the number of dishes gives us the opportunity to showcase more skills and techniques.
Do you have a favourite item on the menu?
Ahmed: Our beef dish is probably my favourite. We use a lovely bit of aged sirloin from our local supplier R&J Butchers, and we have the right balance of the fat and acid which makes it a knock out dish.
Kevin: All the dishes are close to my heart, but the one that really stands out and gives a whole vision of what Legacy is, is the celeriac nosotto. In this dish we are using the humble celeriac in all shapes and forms – fermenting, biscuit, purée and, even a brown skin jus (which is full of umami flavour). In this dish we have managed to showcase the ingredient by utilising every single part, then we turned to chef skills and techniques to elevate it to a different level.
Tell us your favourite ingredient to work with.
Kevin: It must be fish and shellfish, from monkfish to red prawn and lobster.
Ahmed: Potato or celeriac – I just love how versatile those two ingredients are. I’ll use the nosotto again as an example. In this dish there are seven elements which all include a part of the celeriac, whether that be the skin or the juice and it just goes to show how versatile it is. The same goes with a potato, the possibilities are endless with such a humble ingredient.
What do you enjoy most about life at Legacy?
Ahmed: Working with the team. I’ve been lucky to know them for quite a while and now with Kevin bringing his vast knowledge and experience, it just makes for an extremely special team overall.
Kevin: The flexibility that this restaurant gives me to express myself with food and the dishes presented. I also feel that I am surrounded by a group of people, both in the kitchen and outside in the wider hotel, that have the same vision for Legacy.
