‘We work harder': the Lancashire village with five Michelin stars

The Guardian

23-02-2025

It has been called the culinary capital of Britain, with no less than five Michelin stars for 8,000 residents. This is not London, nor Edinburgh, but Aughton, a village in West Lancashire.
The Japanese city of Kyoto has previously been lauded as having the highest number by head, with 100 Michelin-starred restaurants for its 1.46 million people.
But this village, near Ormskirk, had only 8,304 residents at the last count (in 2021), and one of its three Michelin-starred restaurants, Moor Hall, has just won its third star.
'We've had people from the States plan their honeymoon around dinner here,' chef patron Mark Birchall, who grew up nearby in Chorley, said. 'It's amazing. Someone's planned their honeymoon around the north-west of England, and they're coming from California, somewhere very nice and warm, it's fantastic.'
Moor Hall's sister restaurant next door, The Barn, also has a Michelin star. Birchall's guests – many of them repeat customers – come from all over the world, he said.
Moor Hall is only the second three-star restaurant in the north of England – the other being L'Enclume in Cumbria – with most of the others in London.
While this comes with its own challenges, Birchall said, it does also have benefits – they have their own kitchen gardens, and source many of their ingredients from local growers.
'You're not getting surroundings and gardens like this in London,' Birchall said. 'London's amazing, it's so diverse, you can get any food you want, pretty much.
'We've got to work harder. We've got to fight harder for our guests. We don't have hundreds of thousands of people walking past our restaurant every day.
'In 2017, we wanted to make it a world class destination,' he added, 'with the outrageous ambition … to have three stars and to make it a true global destination.'
Just down the road is sō-lō, owned by chef Tim Allen, which opened in 2021 and gained a Michelin star two years later.
'We're surrounded by fantastic growers and producers,' Allen said, and the restaurant is building that network further, having recently sourced a fish supplier in nearby Fleetwood, which, he said, is 'fantastic.'
Allen also has guests from across the UK, and much farther afield. On a weekday lunchtime last week, one table had come from Italy. 'People travel to come and eat here,' he said. 'I find that quite a humbling thing.'
Rather than competing with each other, the chefs feel that having more exceptional restaurants on their doorstep is a positive. Birchall said that when Allen asked him about opening up nearby, he told him: 'For me, the more the better in the area.
'I always think that good things together, that are different, just attract more,' Allen said. 'We're not in a position to compete with what Mark does, we're years away from it. I think we're all doing something dynamic, or something different.
'The product is completely different, the things that we share in similarity are the drive for quality, drive for exceptional produce, and consistency.
'We're next to a now-three-star restaurant and another Michelin star restaurant, it's quite incredible, but I believe that it just draws more people. When Mark was on the TV, we saw bookings.'
Elsewhere in the village, shopkeepers, publicans and restaurateurs say all of this ambition can only be a good thing. 'It's fantastic for business,' said Dan Vernon, a supervisor at Arthur's, a wine and cocktail bar. '[Visitors come from] really far flung away sometimes, which is really cool to see.
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'The kind of guests that it brings in, people from further away, come here and give Aughton a chance that they wouldn't without hearing the Michelin star things,' he said.
At JW Henshaw Butcher's shop, the counter is filled with juicy cuts of meat, jars of colourful pickles are displayed in the window and the shelves inside are stacked with artisan cheeses.
'I think people in this village, people in the local area, do appreciate food, appreciate quality food, local food,' owner James Henshaw said. He supplies to home cooks, rather than restaurants, but he said that the village's foodie reputation does rub off on its residents.
'It's fantastic, a really great place to go for food,' he said.
And it is not just diners who benefit from having the restaurants close by – one of Birchall's most successful chefs, he said, 'is from around the corner.'
'We're looking at an Academy Culinary Arts apprenticeship scheme right now,' he added, 'to give a couple of young people an opportunity.'
Allen, too, says 'pretty much all' of his staff are local. 'It's fantastic,' local MP Ashley Dalton said, 'when you come into West Lancashire, there's a sign that says: 'We've got it all', and I think this is another example of what an amazing, diverse place West Lancashire is.
'To have this gem of culinary excellence in Aughton, it just shows what we've got to offer to people.'
And now, more people than ever are coming to Aughton from afar. Moor Hall's booking diary for July is about to open, and since earning the third star, they've already seen a surge of interest from overseas.
'There's only 153 three-star restaurants in the world,' Birchall said. 'Only 34 – 33 plus us – have a green star along with that, so we're quite a niche category now.
'I felt like we put Aughton on the map on a national scale, but now it's on an international scale.'