Adam Smith, Coworth Park executive chef: 'We're making Woven a culinary destination'

As it did for many people, lockdown gave chef Adam Smith a chance to reflect.

After successful spells at The Ritz and Bolton Abbey, in 2016 Adam moved to Dorchester Collection’s luxury five-star hotel Coworth Park in Ascot, Berkshire, overseeing their various restaurant offerings.

Despite already holding a Michelin star, Adam wanted more.

In 2022, the main fine dining restaurant in the 18th-century Mansion House rebranded to Woven by Adam Smith. A few months later, the British produce and storytelling-focused venue retained its Michelin star and this year earned five AA rosettes.

INSTANT IMPACT

“I was humbled that within a year of me being here, we'd earned a Michelin star, which is one of those things in your career as a chef, you can't put a value on how special that is,” said Adam.

“However, as I grow as a cook and as I get a little bit older, into my early to mid-30s now, the world changes.

“Restaurant Coworth Park served us amazingly well and I was proud of everything we did at that point.

“But I got to the point, like everybody, through lockdown, had more time than I ever had in my life to sit at home and think about things and reevaluate actually, where are we going? Where am I going in my personal life in terms of my career, what do I want? But also, where are we going as a business and as a team at Coworth Park?

“I just felt that the restaurant experience, although good, I knew that deep down we could do better. So that's how Woven kind of came about.

“The idea was to create a new restaurant that became a genuine culinary destination.

“We wanted to create a space that was more than just good food and good service. We wanted something that was unique and a destination restaurant that happened to be in a beautiful hotel.

“I put together things that I've not enjoyed in dining experiences I've had myself in country house hotels and in great restaurants and all the things that I thought hospitality and our industry should be right now.

“For us, that is great food. Bray is 15 minutes down the road, Marlow's 30-40 minutes down the road. There are some of the best restaurants in the country, if not the world. So how do we make ourselves stand out?

“We source the best ingredients we can, but all of those restaurants do – Waterside, Fat Duck, Hand & Flowers. So the only way that I felt we could stand out was just making it personal. That's not just personal to me, but also to the team.

“The service has become ever more important in what we do. I couldn't be prouder that we have a group of people that are as passionate and enthusiastic in front of house, if not more so than myself and the kitchen team.

“We've always had good food. We've not always had the best genuine hospitable service that you can get. In the last two-and-a-half years that has only grown.”

He added: “The modern world, luxury environment is no more about how shiny your silver is and how much gold bling you’ve got. Luxury now is about those relationships, that experience and how you make people feel when they walk through that door and then when they leave through that door. I think that has been the biggest change that we've had.

“If we look back at it and we're honest, as chefs sometimes we let our egos take over and we just become obsessive about where the herb is, where this is, where that is and if things aren't perfect on a plate.

“Yes, the food has to be phenomenal. But I think of all the dining experiences I've had where I've gone and I've had amazing food, but I've not been made to feel comfortable, welcomed by a front of house team or by a service team, I don't want to go back to that place. It's jarred the whole experience. You can't have one without the other.”

MAKING HIS NAME

Adam, the 2012 Roux Scholarship winner, spent nine years at the iconic Ritz hotel in London, working his way up to executive sous chef under mentor John Williams MBE.

But he was keen to start putting his own stamp on things at Coworth Park.

“I loved my time at the Ritz,” Adam said.

“It was an amazing time for me. I learned so much and the relationships I forged there are priceless to me personally.

“But I've been gone from there for a long time. I want to become my own man. I want to create our own style. And I genuinely believe in the last two years we've done that. I genuinely think that you can look at a plate of our food and say, ‘that's from Woven’ or ‘that is Adam Smith's food’.

“That's something I think is super important for me because I don't want to be anybody else. I want to be myself. I want to build a name for this restaurant.

“I think we're well on the way. We've done a lot, we've come a long way, but there's a lot more still we want to do.”

Discussing the overall running of the operation at Coworth Park, Adam explained: “There's not many places in the UK that have one chef that oversees a five-star hotel with multiple outlets, but also runs the gastronomic restaurant. I think number one, that's not easy. I could not be prouder to say that we have one kitchen, one team that cooks for Woven, but it's from the same kitchen that cooks for every other outlet within the hotel.

“I can ask any one of my guys to do anything. It allows us to have a bigger team, but all wanting and going for the same thing. It enables me to manage the labour force of who's where and what.

“If we were a standalone restaurant doing 45 covers, could we afford to have two full-time bakers? I don't think we could. So operating like that allows us to have those strengths that we have.

“It's been a big part of our success, to have that structure, that hierarchy of people that enables us to go forward.”

He continued: “Hotels that operate at a certain level are a great place to learn your craft. I know for myself, before I was allowed to become a chef de partie, I had to work on every section – afternoon tea sandwiches, bar food, fish, veg, bakery, pastry. At Coworth Park, I still operate in the same way.

“The same care goes into absolutely everything we do. You can have the best meal in the world, but if you then stay overnight and you come down for breakfast and it is absolute car crash, then what's the last thing you remember when you leave a property? It's the same guest, the same level of expectation.”

Discussing his hopes for the future of Woven, Adam said: “I want a full restaurant every day.

“If we focus on cooking the best food that we can, if we offer the best service that we can and the best dining experience that we can, and we keep evolving that, it doesn’t matter where you are, people will come.”