London, Paris, Berlin and Birstwith – you might not expect a village in Nidderdale to be included in that line up, but for Kim Moody, it’s just as important as any European capital.
Kim, originally from Loftus in North Yorkshire, has toured as a chef with some of the world’s biggest musicians but her new job at The Station Hotel isn’t as out of the blue as it may first appear.
She explained:
“I came to the Birstwith Show a couple of years ago and I ended up helping to cook there so I made a lot of contacts then, and ended up staying friends with them.
“When Martin, the owner of The Station was talking to the locals saying he was looking for a chef I was recommended.”
It didn’t always seem as though Kim would have the career she enjoys today – a chance opportunity to step in as a replacement for an absent chef at a Saltburn care home was the surprising catalyst.
She found that she had a natural flair for cooking, and decided to train at Middlesbrough College, graduating in 2015.
From there, she gained valuable experience and built her reputation at restaurants across Teesside, but it wasn’t until a gig at Saltburn Food Festival that her career was catapulted into the world of A-list celebrities.
“I was headhunted by a chef I’d initially met at Saltburn Food Festival. We kept in touch, and I got a call completely out of the blue one day last summer.
“Three days later I was cooking for Elton John and his crew in Frankfurt. It was an incredible turn of events really.”
Kim has previously toured with musical legends such as The Foo Fighters, Robbie Williams, Andrea Bocelli and The Arctic Monkeys.
She’s cooked at 98 shows in 62 cities in 12 countries including Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and France.
Recently, she even toured with Beyoncé on the European leg of her record-breaking world tour.
Kim’s specialism is all things patisserie
Andrea Bocelli’s birthday cake
A typical day on tour sees Kim working alongside a team of chefs, cooking for anywhere between 40-400 people, including the artists and their band, support acts and all the technical staff.
She has a hand in designing the menus, and the team often takes inspiration from the cities they’re in, sourcing local produce and recreating regional dishes.
Kim said:
“We’ll go shopping first thing in the morning, to see what we can get. Then we’ll load into the venue, and we have to build our own kitchen from scratch.
“As soon as it’s built, we can start cooking, and then at the end of the day we have to take it all down, load it up and onto the next venue, where we begin it all again.”
While there have been plenty of memorable experiences on tour – especially when working for some of the biggest artists in the world – one in particular stands out to Kim.
“I was asked to make Andrea Bocelli’s birthday cake and we presented it to him in his dressing room during the interval of a gig. Everyone sang happy birthday and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
Birstwith is located on the edge of Nidderdale.
While Birstwith may seem worlds away from the fast-paced, celebrity packed life of a touring chef, Kim has expressed how much she’s enjoying her time in North Yorkshire.
She joked:
“It’s a breath of fresh air to go for a nice walk in the fields and say hi to the sheep on your break.”
She’s also enthused by the ambitions that the team at The Station Hotel have for the restaurant.
As a patisserie specialist with a passion for choux pastry, she’s hoping to incorporate this expertise into the menu.
She said:
“We’re aiming to bring really good quality, home cooked, fresh food from scratch. We want to be able to compete with the best restaurants in Harrogate.
“If I can bring some of my experience to support the head chef here, that’s brilliant.”
Kim will be at The Station Hotel until May, when she’ll be spending the summer working tours for more famous faces, the details of which she has to keep firmly under wraps.
However, she’s hoping that she’ll be able to return to Birstwith afterwards and rejoin the team – perhaps with a few more celebrity anecdotes to her name.
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