From Potwash To The Pass: The Making Of Ben Wilkinson

There is a particular kind of chef whose path to the stove begins not with ambition but with accident — a Saturday job that quietly takes hold and never quite lets go. For Ben Wilkinson, Head Chef of The Pass at South Lodge, awarded a Michelin Star in 2023, that accident was a potwash position at a small golf course restaurant, taken on during his final years at school simply to earn some weekend money. He didn't know it then, but the heat, the noise and the relentless rhythm of a working kitchen had already got under his skin.

By the time he finished school, there was no question of doing anything else. He stepped straight into a Commis Chef role and, not long after, made the move that so many young British cooks make sooner or later: London. He landed at the Hilton on Park Lane, and it was there, in his very first shifts, that something shifted permanently.

"That was where my career started to get serious," he reflects — the moment he stopped thinking of cooking as a job he might walk away from, and started thinking of it as a life.

A Debt to Simon Bradley

Every chef worth their salt can point to someone who changed the way they see food, and for Wilkinson that figure was Simon Bradley, a head chef whose appetite for flavour and sheer passion for the craft left a lasting mark. Theirs was a kitchen built not on ego or showmanship, but on a simple, shared love of cooking for its own sake — and it's an ethos Wilkinson has carried with him ever since, through his time leading the kitchen at The Cottage in the Wood in the Lake District, and now at the helm of The Pass.

Reopened in 2022, The Pass is an intimate, 28-cover dining room where the kitchen isn't hidden away but put centre stage. Guests sit close enough to watch each course take shape, the tasting menu unfolding in real time, built around seasonal British produce at its peak. It is, in many ways, the perfect stage for a chef who relishes variety as much as Wilkinson does. One moment he might be elbow-deep in prep, the next chairing a budget meeting, then back on the pass running service. "Every day is different," he says — and it's the constant hunt for improvement, in produce, in efficiency, in flavour, that keeps him hooked.

That restlessness extends to his own cooking style, which he describes as having taken years to settle into. These days, the big leaps have given way to something quieter: fine-tuning rather than reinvention. It's a discipline he believes sits at the heart of every serious kitchen — the conviction that nothing is ever quite finished, that there is always more nuance to chase.

Seasons, Smiles and a Pork Pie in Vinegar

Ask Wilkinson what he loves most about food and the answer changes with the calendar. This year, as last, it has been the courgette — simple, unglamorous, and at its very best through the summer months. Ask him for a guilty pleasure, though, and he doesn't hesitate: half a pork pie, drowned in malt vinegar.

It's a telling answer from a chef who trained in French classical technique but whose heart leans firmly towards simplicity. He traces that instinct back to childhood holidays in Spain, his first real brush with food beyond these shores — good produce, cooked without fuss, and all the better for it. That same philosophy now shapes how he talks about southern European food more broadly: tables groaning with tapas, Greek mezze, Italian sharing plates, colour and simplicity in equal measure.

The Pass's open kitchen gives Wilkinson a vantage point most chefs never get — a clear view of the moment a guest's scepticism dissolves into delight. There is, he says, real pleasure in talking a diner through a dish, watching the flicker of doubt cross their face, and then catching the smile that follows the first bite — especially from those who swear they don't normally like whatever's in front of them. It's a small exchange, but one he clearly treasures.

What he has far less patience for is food designed purely to perform online — the oversized, gimmicky "challenge" dishes built for a camera rather than a plate. To him, that's not cooking; it's content, and he finds it more than a little vulgar.

Britain, Japan, and the Humble Pork Pie

Pushed to name a single favourite world cuisine, Wilkinson struggles — and with good reason. London, he argues, is now home to a genuinely excellent version of almost any country's food, a reflection of Britain's openness to global influence and one of the things that makes the UK's food scene so exciting. If pressed on a single dish, though, he'll happily nominate the pork pie — Melton Mowbray's, specifically — as a contender close to his heart.

Top of his travel wish list is Japan, drawn by a reverence for food that he feels operates on an entirely different level. As a devoted fan of sushi, the chance to watch — and learn from — a true master of the craft sits firmly on his bucket list.

The Case for Vinegar, Beef Cheek and Fish and Chips

Pressed on what's most underrated in British kitchens today, Wilkinson doesn't waver: vinegar. He and his team keep somewhere between twelve and fifteen varieties on hand, each suited to a different dish, and he's adamant that acidity is the key that unlocks flavour few cooks make proper use of.

Beef cheek gets a similar nod — no longer especially unfashionable, perhaps, but still proof that the toughest cuts, handled with skill and patience, often reward the cook more generously than anything more delicate.

Summer, he says, is the easiest season of all to cook well, when tomatoes, courgettes and peppery, bitter leaves need little more than a light hand to shine. And for everyday eating, nothing beats fish and chips done properly — good fresh fish, plenty of salt and vinegar, and mushy peas on the side. Simple food, taken seriously, is very much Wilkinson's signature, on the pass and off it.

The Bigger Picture

Beyond the plate, Wilkinson is candid about the pressures facing British hospitality.

Costs across the industry have climbed sharply over the past decade, he points out, while what diners pay has failed to keep pace — a gap he believes needs a serious, industry-wide rebalancing if restaurants are to remain sustainable. It's a concern he says is now firmly embedded in how South Lodge and the wider Exclusive Collection operate, shaping decisions at every level rather than sitting on the margins.

For anyone intimidated by the kitchen at home, his advice is refreshingly down to earth: start small. Master an omelette. Bank a few easy wins, build some confidence, and learn a couple of dishes well enough to be genuinely proud of them.

It's the same philosophy that has carried him from a golf course potwash sink to the pass of a Michelin-starred dining room — patience, simplicity, and a refusal to ever quite feel finished.