The Bionic Chef
Johnny James, Managing Editor
There are plenty of fine dining options in Kirklees for lunch and dinner service, but what about the most important meal of the day? Serving up some of the tastiest breakfasts and brunches in Huddersfield, The Bionic Chef is for anyone who likes their mornings served with serious flavour.
The Bionic Chef is a family-run contemporary eatery tucked into the scenic village of Shelley, on the edge of the Pennines. The name comes from the unfortunate events surrounding owner and chef Richard Whittaker’s road traffic accident in 2011, which caused him to eventually lose his leg. During his long and painful recovery, the concept of the restaurant crystalised, and in 2018, on the anniversary of the crash, The Bionic Chef opened its doors.
With roots in the catering industry spanning over 20 years, the staff here are passionate about high-quality food that doesn’t fit into one mould; the menu caters to customers’ desire for ever-changing dishes with complex flavours and interesting textures. Take a look at the restaurant’s website, and you’ll notice that the dishes are given satisfyingly no-nonsense titles (waffle, halloumi, cod, lamb, and so on), but this belies their complexity.
On the breakfast menu, if you order the waffle, you’ll be presented with dill buttermilk waffles, cajun fried chicken, maple bacon and lemon paprika mayonnaise. Or order the yoghurt and you’ll be served mango and lime jam, yoghurt brûlée, blueberry sugar and sticky toffee granola.
On the brunch menu, meanwhile, popular items include the pancakes (American pancakes, raspberry cheesecake, shortbread granola, and mojito cream diplomat), the cod (charcoal poached cod fillet, feta and red pepper Basque potatoes, spinach and bacon fricassee and fennel beurre blanc) and the pork (five-spiced pork, kimchi crispy panko scotch egg, wilted pak choi, black bean schezwan, wasabi emulsion and XO pesto).
While this is primarily a breakfast and brunch restaurant, Richard and his team have been expanding their horizons of late. In the spirit of adapting and overcoming, the COVID-19 pandemic spurred The Bionic Chef to produce fine dining meals to be taken away and enjoyed at home. ‘Supper Club @ Home’ unveils a new menu each week, with £29.95 per person getting you three courses of top-quality indulgence. Each menu is more adventurous than the last, with Richard reeling off a seemingly endless list of culinary ideas to keep the taste buds hooked. See a sample below.
With plans to make the Supper Club a more integral part of the restaurant’s post-pandemic model, The Bionic Chef not only boasts some of the best breakfasts and brunches around, but they’re now giving other fine dining restaurants in the area a run for their money on dinner service, too.
Onwards and upwards, it’s clear, is the name of the game at The Bionic Chef. While it remains to be seen what precisely the future holds for this inspiring restaurant, we do know one thing – it won’t be boring.
