Alex grew up in Marchwiel, a stone’s throw from Erbistock, and went to Darland High School and then on to Yale College.
Like many, she had her first taste of hospitality at 16 working part-time as a KP in the kitchen at the Pant-yr-Ochain. At 18, she moved front of house and was then lured to the pumps at the Cross Foxes where she spent the best part of 5 years.
Big city lights and a course in fashion buying and merchandising saw her drawn to Manchester, and with a keen eye for style and design, she still indulges her passion for clothes whenever she can spare the time or money. Louboutin, Jimmy Choo, Stella McCartney, she is our very own Sarah Jessica-Parker.
Wanderlust kicked in and Australia beckoned. Part-time jobs turned into full-time work and she ended up managing a backpackers bar in Melbourne. The melting pot of cultures down under is mirrored in their food and she learnt to love the touch of spice that comes with “Pan-Asian” cooking; useful taste-buds to have around given where we want to go with our food.
Once back from her travels, Alex took a coordinator position at Chester Zoo but missed the cut and thrust of pubs so joined the team at Harker’s in Chester as an Assistant Manager before joining us as Deputy and in effect coming home. She was promoted to GM in September 2020 and hasn’t looked back; setting the bar high and always smiling and leading the team from the front.
Sébastien, or Seb as he likes to be known is not quite as local as the rest of the team. Born and raised in London, he is actually half French, half Mauritian.
He was always a keen sportsman, with tennis and football taking up most of his time as a youngster. Although he considered a career in coaching tennis, his origins got the better of him; food and drink it was! He is however still the face of the tennis club back home where he played tennis from the age of nine and learnt how to pour his first pint.
The seasonnaire life took over and Seb found himself working three summer and three winter seasons. He could usually be found in France, although he did venture to the Scottish Highlands for a rainy summer to work in an award winning inn. His three winter seasons were in Les Gets and during his second winter he met his better half, which is why he can now be found on the Welsh/Shropshire border.
Hanging up his boots from seasonnaire life, Seb and Helen took on a live in position at the Carden Arms in Tilston. They left to pursue a dream they always had together. They bought a VW campervan and spent their entire summer eating and drinking their way around France. He is now ready to settle down and is really excited about this new venture and being part of such an experienced team in such a beautiful setting.
Seb loves talking about all things food and drink and if he isn’t working, you will usually find him in another pub sampling the food and sipping a G&T, or drowning his sorrows when Arsenal loses yet again!
Born in Cornwall, Giorgia has swapped the beach views for a riverside one, not before gaining her law degree at Chester University, all at the same time as working her way up the ranks with us, earning herself the Senior Assistant Manager role.
She’s been in hospitality since she was 16, working in bars and pubs, but realised she was missing the country life and joined us to develop her management skills and follow her passion for good food.
Talking of which, with Albanian roots, Giorgia has brought some interesting new dishes to our table. Also, in her spare time, she somehow manages to fit in both playing for and coaching her local American football team – The Chester Romans – where, despite her diminutive stature, her flamboyant personality, straight-talking approach and reverberant voice are undoubted assets!
Born and bred just 10 minutes from the Boat in Ponciau, Alyn’s definitely a local lad. He got into cheffing at the Corn Mill, Llangollen, straight from school. Here he quickly learned how to organise himself in a busy kitchen while simultaneously learning all the basic techniques at Yale College. This was his first venture with Brunning & Price and he worked his way up to junior sous chef here, before leaving to join the new-openings team for the company.
At 25 Alyn became the youngest head chef in the company when he took the culinary reins over at the Dysart Arms in Bunbury and with him at the helm of the kitchen they went on to win Cheshire Dining Pub of the Year. He left B&P in 2013 to spread his wings and hone his craft with other talented chefs around the country. Along the way he launched a “small plates’” concept at the Wild Goose over at Cheshire Lakes and most recently was the Head Chef at the highly regarded New Malton Inn in North Yorkshire.
It’s fair to say that Alyn is very passionate about food, and when not in his own kitchen is out scouting for new culinary tastes and experiences elsewhere, or buying cookbooks to add to his massive collection. He has two cute (but crazy!) little pugs, Bruno and Freddie, and is a huge fan of all things Batman. Finally and not surprising for a Welshman he’s pretty keen on Rugby Union…Wales of course!
Born in Wrexham, just up the road, Ross was inspired to become a chef while living in Nottingham and working in a small restaurant called Sinatra’s. Motivated by the creativity, the buzz and the camaraderie of the kitchen, he then worked in a few restaurants in Chester before gaining a position at Peckforton Castle as a banqueting chef and more latterly spent a couple of years at the renowned Tyddyn Llan near Corwen in North Wales.
For reasons of progression and greater input into the menu and dishes, he joined us here at The Boat on January 22, where his passion for fresh food and attention to detail does him proud.
He’s a multitalented and multifaceted young man, who plays the Viola to grade 8, runs, hills walks, loves music festivals (his favourite live band is Childish Gambino) and is addicted to good coffee. However, when shove comes to push his passion returns to food. For him, cooking is just as much a hobby as it is a job, and he spends much of his spare time at home baking bread and cooking for family and friends.
He also makes some mean fudge…. so the front of house crew love him just as much as the kitchen team!
Born in Singapore, which is perhaps where his love of spicy food came from, Graham was brought up in Surrey before seeing the light and escaping to the borderlands of North Wales; where Shropshire meets Cheshire meets Clwyd. He now lives near Overton on Dee with his wife Judy, a vet, and a veritable menagerie on their smallholding.
Back in the 80’s, along with his old business partner, he co-founded Brunning and Price Ltd, a food led pub company, at a time when pickled eggs and a bag of crisps were about as good as it got food-wise in a pub. They felt they could do better, and they generally did. Decent food was the driving force but a love of beer, wine and the character and informality of socialising in pubs was always to the fore as they strove for continuous improvement at every turn.
Having sold Brunning and Price in 2007, Graham was persuaded to return and grow it quite substantially before finally leaving for good in 2017. Some non-exec and advisory roles followed with some lovely companies but you can’t beat having your own “baby”, so when Ed rang him up about the Boat it didn’t take much for him to climb aboard and see if 30 years experience, a stunning location, a new business partner and some fresh ideas couldn’t make the Boat pretty exceptional and something for everyone that comes on board to be really proud of.
When not hanging out in pubs Graham loves most things sporty. He hung up his rugby boots a while ago but still occasionally plays tennis or golf, does a bit of sailing and adores skiing; mountains, powder, après-ski, long boozy suppers…what’s not to like?!
Born and bred in Cheshire near the Welsh border, Ed and his wife Annie-Rose, along with their young family are now renovating a house on the opposite side of the river to Erbistock.
His day job is commercial property development and investment but when deciding to get into business with Graham the only driver was creating something special in an absolutely idyllic location with one of the best operators in the business…..oh and by pure chance, The Boat is within walking distance from his new family home as well!!
As a member of the British Game Alliance, his love of game birds and promoting it as a delicious, sustainable and healthy food source is a perfect fit for the menu at The Boat.
Ed’s loves are sport, food, wine, beer and country pursuits.
