Chef Kevin Bonello, Culinary Director at The Grand, York, brings more than three decades of international experience to Legacy’s new Yorkshire-focused dining concept.
Yorkshire Ingredients Take Centre Stage
Kevin Bonello is reshaping Legacy at The Grand, York, with three seasonal menus celebrating Yorkshire ingredients, local producers, craftsmanship, fermentation and a deeply personal approach to modern fine dining.
Michelin-Experienced Chef Puts Provenance, Seasonality And Local Craftsmanship At The Heart Of The Grand, York’s Fine-Dining Restaurant
Michelin-experienced chef Kevin Bonello is preparing to open a new chapter for Legacy, the fine-dining restaurant at The Grand, York, with an ambitious concept built around Yorkshire ingredients, seasonality and local craftsmanship.
Bonello, Culinary Director at The Grand, joined the hotel in 2023 after an international career spanning more than three decades. Previously, he spent 21 years with Malta’s Xara Collection, where he and his team earned a Michelin star at De Mondion.
Now he is turning his attention to establishing Legacy as one of the UK’s notable fine-dining destinations, with a completely reimagined experience launching on 4 November.
At the heart of the new direction is what Bonello describes as a deeper connection between diners, ingredients and place. The restaurant’s menus will follow three seasonal chapters — Game & Wild from November, Foraged & Roots from February and Fish & Harvest from June.
Facts
★ Michelin Pedigree
Bonello and his team earned a Michelin star at de Mondion in Malta.
★ Three Decades Of Experience
His culinary career spans more than 30 years across international hospitality.
★ Three Seasonal Menus
Legacy will move through Game & Wild, Foraged & Roots and Fish & Harvest.
★ Yorkshire At Heart
Farmers, fishers, producers, foraged ingredients and rooftop honey will help shape the menus.
★ Chef And Craftsman
Bonello has even hand-carved wooden utensils and cutlery rests for the new restaurant experience.
Rather than following culinary trends, dishes will evolve according to the availability of local produce, with ingredients sourced from Yorkshire farmers, producers and fishers, alongside produce connected directly to the hotel, including honey from its rooftop beehives.
Bonello is also bringing a highly personal touch to the restaurant. Ingredients will include produce foraged near his village outside York, while elements of the dining room have been created by local craftspeople. Wooden cutlery rests have been hand-carved by Bonello himself, murals have been painted by local artist and former restaurant employee Lily Roberts, and York woodworker Ollie Abell has created a bespoke handcrafted cheese trolley.
Fermentation cupboards will also form part of the restaurant environment, reflecting techniques central to the chef’s evolving culinary approach.
“Legacy’s new future is one that allows the ingredients to shine,” Bonello said. “The only thing taking centre stage in our restaurant is the food and the guest experience.”
For Bonello, the new concept represents something more personal than simply another menu change.
“This is my food love story played out,” he said. “We will connect guests to the entire food journey when they dine in Legacy. I’ve travelled all over the world in my career but found the inspiration I was looking for in my very own village.”
His culinary style draws heavily on both his international experience and Maltese heritage. Bonello describes his cooking as “proud, bold and precise,” with influences spanning Sicily, Arabic cuisine, France and Spain.
His career has also included early experience in kitchens associated with Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White and Éric Fréchon, experiences that helped shape the disciplined yet expressive approach he brings to York today.
Adam Dyke, General Manager at The Grand, York, said the new Legacy would present Yorkshire through Bonello’s distinctive perspective.
“This is a new Legacy and this is Yorkshire served in a way that has never been done before,” Dyke said. “This is formal dining done in an informal way. It’s inviting, innovative and full of his personality.”
The relaunch comes at a significant moment for York’s visitor economy. According to Visit York’s 2025 STEAM report, the city welcomed 8.88 million visitors during 2025, generating £2.08 billion for the local economy. Food and drink accounted for 27 per cent of visitor expenditure.
For Bonello, those figures point to the increasingly important role restaurants can play in shaping how visitors experience a city.
With months of preparation behind the new concept, Legacy is now positioning itself around an idea that is deliberately simple — allowing exceptional ingredients, their origins and the people behind them to tell the story.
And for a chef whose career has taken him through some of Europe’s most demanding kitchens, the inspiration for his next chapter has ultimately been found close to home.
