Esteemed in his own sweet time
Just seven months after opening his restaurant, Mýse in Hovingham, Josh Overington became Yorkshire's newest Michelin-starred chef. Catherine Scott reports. Pictures by James Hardisty.
JOSH Overington is one happy man. Just seven months after opening his fine dining restaurant, Mýse in a former pub in the North Yorkshire village of Hovingham, he has been awarded a coveted Michelin star. What makes the award even sweeter is that for nine years running the acclaimed Le Cochon Aveugle in York, it felt like he was being overlooked by Michelin.
He had been misquoted often as saying he wasn’t interested in getting a Michelin star. “If Michelin offered me a star, I would be made up and I wouldn’t be handing it back. But it isn’t the thing that drives me,” he told me in 2017. “That would be a mistake. It has to be about the food first and the experience we are giving to the diners. I can honestly say we are one of the best restaurants in Yorkshire, and we aim to be one of the best restaurants in England.”
And although overjoyed at getting the recognition many believe he has deserved for a while, Overington’s mantra has not changed.
“Obviously getting the star is amazing, not just for me but for everyone, but it isn’t what drives me. When I opened Mýse [Anglo Saxon for eating at the table], I wanted it to be one of the best restaurants in the country – that’s what drives me every day.”
His decision to sell up two restaurants in York (he also had Cave du Cochon) surprised a lot of people. He and his wife, sommelier Vicky, successfully reopened after the pandemic but he realised quite quickly they had hit the glass ceiling “creatively and economically”, with just 14 covers and a tiny kitchen, but possibly more importantly, personally things had changed, “We had our daughter, Olivia, and it changed everything. The kitchen was so small there was no way I could employ a head chef, which meant that there was no way I could take time off to spend with my daughter – so I was stuck there. I started to dread going into work and that had never happened before.
“The business was really busy and the staff were great but I wanted to have a business that allowed me to have more freedom. We had been on the lookout for a brand new business when we saw the Hovingham Inn was on the market. It had the potential for