Sykes House Farm: Inside the catering butchers training top chefs in Wetherby
A state-of-the-art culinary training hub has been turning professional chefs in Leeds into students again - offering hands-on butchery skills just outside Wetherby.
For the last nine months, Sykes House Farm has been welcoming some of the region’s top names to ‘Method’, a specialist centre delivering lessons on the field-to-fork approach to cooking.
Chefs can learn about different cuts of meat, where they come from, how to prepare them - and flavours they didn’t know they were missing.
Inside, it’s not your typical cookery demo. A huge bespoke butchers’ block takes centre stage, surrounded by sharp knives and trays of glistening meat, as development chef Greg Lewis deftly breaks down a side of beef.
In the centre of the room, a long table is laid for a supper club, where guests will soon eat a nine-course tasting menu while chatting to the man who cooked it. But it’s not an open-to-all tourist attraction. Method was built, first and foremost, to educate professional chefs.
“Nowadays, chefs don’t tend to get the training that the older style of chefs might have had previously,” said Rachael Hirst, who co-owns Sykes House Farm.
“They don’t always know much about the animals or where the different cuts have come from. They expect it to arrive already cut in a vacuum packed bag so they can sous vide it.”
The aim of the space is to give chefs the skills and inspiration they’re missing, with one bonus being that they’ll stay loyal to the supplier who gave it to them.
But in the eight months since launching, Method has grown into something much bigger. The public can now book in for ticketed butchery masterclasses and guest chef nights, where names from MasterChef and Michelin-starred restaurants step into the kitchen to host one-off evenings.
“It’s an experience. It’s not like going for lunch or dinner at a restaurant. People are getting more than just a plate of food,” said Rachael.
Her family bought Sykes House Farm in 1967. After training in agricultural college, Rachael’s father took on as many as 2,500 pigs and 500 cattle. By the mid-70s, the family had one of Yorkshire’s first farm shops, selling meat to the public with butchers working in full view.
But when pig markets collapsed, the family diversified - first into a small catering butchers, then into one of the largest in the north of England. Today, Sykes House Farm’s 26 delivery vans supply restaurants from Leeds to Manchester, from street food traders to Michelin-starred dining rooms.
“Leeds chefs have been really supportive of us - and once you have a relationship with a chef, they take you with them wherever they go,” explained Rachael. She reeled off names like a roll call of Yorkshire’s fine dining scene: Chef Jono at V&V, Harvey Nichols, The Whitehall, The Cut & Craft, Empire Cafe.
Greg, who runs Method’s kitchen, is himself a veteran of the trade himself. He said: “I’ve always been a chef. I started in a bakery in 1994 and I've been working in kitchens since then.”
In lockdown, he started cooking for friends again, which led to conversations with Rachael about creating a development chef role. He continued: “It just seemed to be the perfect fit for me, telling that field to fork story. I think it’s probably missing from the industry a bit now. I wanted this to be an inspirational place as much as it is an aspirational one.
“Kids come here and see what the farm’s all about and then go to work in London or France or wherever, but they’ll always remember Sykes House Farm.”
Meanwhile, the public events have taken on a life of their own. Rachael explained: “We’ve had one man come every event we’ve done so far. He’s finding it far more interesting coming here than going out for dinner. And everyone makes friends. People are hugging on the way out and swapping numbers.
“When you’re in a restaurant, you don’t get to understand how they prepare everything from scratch. It can’t be written on the menu because there's not enough room. But here, it’s different. Last night, for example, the gamekeeper came down and did a speech for our guests. With everything we do, whether it’s for trade or an event, we’re always trying to educate.”