​The story of Whites has been one of a meteoric rise to success. Ian Midgely meets chef patron John Robinson in the wake of the Beverley restaurant being named amongst an exclusive number of new award winners in the prestigious Michelin Guide . . .

Chef patron John Robinson outside Whites, in Beverley, which has just won recognition in the 2010 edition of the Michelin guide

John Robinson admits his heart leapt into his mouth when the man from the Michelin Guide produced his card. He had seemed just an ordinary diner on an ordinary January evening in 2009, when rising culinary star John did his usual tour of the tables to make sure all his guests were enjoying a convivial evening of great food and fine wine.

“The more I talked to this guy the more it became obvious he knew a lot about food,” smiles John, sloping back in his chair in his small, but perfectly formed, restaurant, Whites, situated in the shadow of Beverley’s ancient North Bar.

“I asked him if he was in the catering industry himself and he produced his card. ‘I work for Michelin,’ he said. ‘Maybe you have heard of us?’

“I did freeze for a second,” remembers John, the smile expanding to a beaming grin. “I had shivers running down my spine. And then he asked if he could see our kitchens.”

After giving his surprise visitor a tour of the restaurant, John plucked up the courage to ask the critic whether he had enjoyed his meal. The answer was promising.

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I hadn’t,” he replied.

John suspects several more  undercover judges visited his fledgling restaurant in the following months with the result that he was awarded a prestigious Bib Gourmand late last year.

The award, which has been presented since 1955 to restaurants offering “good food at moderate prices”, is seen by many as a first stepping stone towards winning a coveted Michelin star.

In the UK’s case, a Bib Gourmand is presented solely to restaurants offering three courses for under £28, proving you don’t have to re-mortgage the house to enjoy an exceptional restaurant experience.

But the award is just the latest fillip for 25-year-old John and his close-knit band of staff at the Beverley restaurant since it opened its doors on 28th August, 2008 – a date seared like a pan-fried scallop into the young chef’s mind.

The fact Whites has survived and thrived during what has turned out to be the worst economic downturn since the Second World War is testament to the chef’s belief that quality will always endure.

And there’s no-one happier about this than John, who’s living his dream as a chef patron and entrepreneur despite his relatively tender age.

When we meet, the rangy, 6ft 1ins, chef is running a little late.

He apologises profusely as he dashes across North Bar to shake hands, dodging the cars queuing at the lights waiting to pass under the old gate into the town proper, or hang a right towards the picturesque Westwood, a few hundred yards down the road.

He’s got a good excuse. He’s been visiting his butcher at Kiplingcotes to discuss a delivery of rare breed pork and Black Welsh Mountain Lamb.

“It’s a great position for a restaurant,” he tells me later. “Because people have to stop at the lights they look around and notice we’re here. I think it got us noticed quite quickly when we opened.”

Scallops with green bean salsa and cauliflower panacotta

The North Ferriby-born, Kirkella-raised cook confides he wasn’t always as taken with his restaurant premises as he is now.

When scouting locations for his new eaterie in 2008, he had already dismissed the North Bar shop as “too small” to accommodate his vision.

“I actually said to my girlfriend ‘anyone who opens a restaurant there is an idiot’,” he says, shrugging sheepishly.

“I was actually looking at opening a place in York – but that had fallen through at the last minute – and I’d reached the point where I was thinking ‘where do I go from here?’ when I found myself sitting at the traffic lights outside here.

“I pulled over and rang the estate agent, who said he was showing somebody else around that afternoon, and that was it.

“What won me over? I don’t know. It is a fairly small place but it just had a nice feeling about it. It felt welcoming. I’d looked around 60-odd other premises in the area – but it was this one that jumped out at me.”

What John, cheered on proudly by his family and friends, has achieved at Whites in the space of two years is remarkable.

An understated but attractive dining area has been fashioned out of an empty shell of a building that previously didn’t even have gas or electricity.

The restaurant is now upholstered with warming chocolates and subtle whites, while vibrant ceramic works by a local artist provide splashes of colour alongside draped fairy lights. Everything leads the eye towards the golden spotlights hanging above the pass, where John’s locally-sourced and delicately-prepared dishes emerge from the kitchen.

It was this simple, but expertly prepared, fare which won a rave review from The Observer’s food critic Jay Rayner, who lavished praise on the restaurant when he visited last year.

Describing Whites as “the sort of smart, if understated, place that this country needs very badly” Rayner’s review set the phone ringing off the hook and ensured fully-booked  lunch and evening sittings for seven whole weeks.

An understated but attractive dining area has been fashioned out of an empty shell of a building

Now Whites attracts as much interest from London and places as far afield as Nottingham, Ilkley and Sheffield as it does from Beverley – which is a source of real pride for its proud Yorkshireman owner, determined to put his home county on the national map.

What out-of-towners find when they arrive is a constantly evolving à la carte menu featuring treats such as roasted quail breast presented on a salad of beetroot and carrot, roasted monkfish tail rolled in ras el hanoute and sautéed Wetherby partridge breast served with a spiced pear loaf and foie gras cream.

A further tasting menu, featuring nine belt-busting courses, is where John allows himself to experiment, constantly pushing himself to greater culinary heights.

Most nights, he’s a one-man band in the kitchen, although he is passing on tricks of the trade he’s learned working at prestigious restaurants such as Winteringham Fields and Gleneagles to several local understudies.

To say John’s rise to chef patron-hood has been inexorable is an understatment. Ever since boyhood, he has single-mindedly pursued his dream of owning his own restaurant.

“I don’t really know where it came from,” he shrugs. “My mum was always a really good cook and there’s a picture of me filling mince pies with her when I was three.

“By the time I was 10 I was cooking three-course meals for the whole family.

“I don’t think there was ever a defining moment when the thunderbolt hit me and I thought ‘I want to be a chef’. But I remember, when I was quite young, I was working at one restaurant and the chef showed me a picture of marzipan figs that Michel Roux had made and I thought, ‘yeah, I could do this for the rest of my life’.”

It hasn’t been easy. When most of his friends were out pubbing and clubbing on a Saturday night, John would often be found in a hot restaurant kitchen, toiling on an evening service.

But the dedication has paid off.

He may still only be in his mid-20s but he has already completed an apprenticeship at Winteringham’s two Michelin-starred restaurant, cooked in a four star hotel in Auckland, New Zealand, and even had a brief stint running his own pub, The Star, in North Dalton.

And, with youth on his side, he says this is just the start of his culinary journey.

“I’m definitely a better chef than I was 16 months ago,” he smiles. “When you’re working in a big hotel or restaurant you focus on one department and do one thing really well. Here I get to do everything.

“You can only improve when you’re doing this all day, every day,” he says. “And you never stop learning.”

To book a fine dining experience at Whites Restaurant and Patisserie, call John and his team on (01482) 866121.