Frances Atkins, one of the most prominent British chefs of the century and one of the first women in the UK to earn a Michelin star*, launches her new venture tomorrow – a café in a garden centre near Harrogate, less than 20 miles from the Yorke Arms, the old coaching inn on the Yorkshire Moors where she made her name.

Accompanied by chef Roger Olive and front-of-house manager John Tullett – her team for more than 20 years – Frances is opening Paradise Café at Daleside Nurseries in the village of Killinghall, just north of Harrogate. It will be open from 9am to 5pm every day except Monday, initially with dinner for bookings only on Fridays.

Frances opened the Yorke Arms with her husband Bill in 1997, and quickly established a reputation for her exceptional cooking and expertise with wild game from the local moors. The couple sold the business in 2018 so Bill could retire, but Frances carried on running the kitchen until the pandemic forced the inn’s closure two years ago. It has since been relaunched as a private-hire country house and wedding venue.

What may look like a step down for a chef of Frances’s pedigree may reflect her personal tastes: in her latter years at the Yorke Arms, she was increasingly enthusiastic about cooking and serving meals under canvas in the vegetable garden she planted behind the ivy-clad stone inn. She launched the move to Daleside last summer, initially operating out of an Airstream caravan.

Frances said: “We are thrilled to be finally opening and very excited about our location. It was always the plan to open a café at Daleside, but owing to the difficulties ensued over the pandemic, we are over a year late in producing our forward plans.”

* This article has been amended. Thanks to the reader pointing out that the first woman to win a Michelin star in the UK was, in fact, not Frances Atkins but Sonia Blech in 1978. In fact a handful of other female chefs had also won a star by the time Frances received hers in 2003.