Elly Wentworth talks about her role as head chef at the Angel – Taste of Devon

It was in 1974 that Joyce Molyneux famously assumed the role of head chef at the Angel when her friend, colleague and acclaimed post-war chef George Perry-Smith, owner of the ground-breaking Hole in the Wall in Bath, bought the property. Molyneux went on to make the Angel – or the Carved Angel as it was known under her steerage – her own until her retirement in 1999, and famously became one of the first British female chefs to earn a Michelin star while there. Wentworth's appointment in 2018 by the Angel's owners, the Holland Group, was a conscious move to put the beloved property back into female hands.

Although the Angel has experienced various incarnations of its heavenly name, not to mention assorted levels of success over the past 50 years, it has consistently been the home of great chefs, including Devon local Peter Gorton, John Burton-Race and Alan Murchison. And while there's no doubting that Molyneux's reign over the restaurant's kitchen in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s was its most magical era, the Angel's future is looking particularly dazzling under rising star Wentworth.

Inheriting the female line

On taking the mantle four years ago, Wentworth, a MasterChef: The Professionals competitor, was entirely cognisant of the role she had to fill; the 29-year-old Poole-born chef, whose career includes periods with chefs Chris and James Tanner, Simon Hulstone, Richard Davies and Hywel Jones, has all the energy and dynamism required to do the job.

"The reason why I was employed in the first place was because the owners wanted a female chef and they wanted the Angel to return to what Joyce Molyneux made it back in the day – one of the best restaurants in the country, a destination," explains Wentworth. "But it was hard in the beginning, and I did wonder if I had made the right decision."

She left her role as sous chef at Lucknam Park in Colerne, Wiltshire, under executive chef Hywel Jones, and arrived in Dartmouth, where experiencing the town's extreme seasonality was something of a culture shock, she admits. "When I first started, I would have two for dinner or maybe one for lunch. I said to my dad, ‘I've come from one of the busiest hotels I've ever worked in. I don't know if this is for me.' I was leaving the restaurant at 7.30pm some nights and thinking ‘what's going on?'"

However, encouraged by her father to knuckle down, she threw herself into the role. "And through sheer hard work and a constant focus to deliver consistency, we, as a team, have completely turned this restaurant around," she explains, adding that her inherited team displayed totally different styles and techniques to those that she had learned during her formative years when she arrived. "I drilled it into them: ‘we will turn this restaurant around' and we've done that, and we've built a reputation, somewhere that offers an experience."

The past few years, of course, have produced some of the most challenging times any business could endure. The impact of Covid and its associated lockdowns has been hard on the bijou, 26-seat restaurant which, pre-Covid, had almost double the number of covers. But with hindsight, the Covid protocols, which forced the restaurant to reduce its table numbers, has been something of a blessing.

"When we could seat 43, it was so crowded. Reducing the tables has been one of the best decisions we've ever made because we're now regularly fully booked at dinner. People are so keen to dine with us that when they can't get in at dinner, they're happy to come at lunch. Coming out of lockdown last May, we were fully booked with a full waiting list for four months. That was unheard of previously."

Stay tuned

Television appearances (MasterChef: The Professionals Rematch 2018 and Great British Menu 2021) as well as deserved entries in the AA and Michelin guides have played a massive part in cementing the Angel's new-found status. Wentworth has also won a steady stream of awards – an Acorn Award in 2019, Trencherman's Awards 2020 for Best Chef, and Visit Devon Tourism Awards 2020-2021 Restaurant of the Year, to name but a few.

Indeed, Wentworth, who also reveals she will be representing the south-west in Great British Menu 2022, has been shortlisted for two categories in the forthcoming Trencherman's Awards 2022 – for best chef and special contribution. "Special contribution? That's massive," she exclaims, adding that she's up against chefs Mark Hix and Nathan Outlaw, among others. "I wouldn't even put myself in that class. I'm just someone who puts their head down and I've done that for the past four years and I've tried to be the best I can every single day."

And that's not just in the kitchen. After more than three years workings alongside Wentworth at the Angel as front of house manager, Jordan Wiltshire, who worked with Wentworth at Lucknam Park, has recently left to return to the Cotswolds property. So, who's taking on his role? "At the moment, it's me, I'm the main man, shall we say," she laughs.

Floating between back and front of house, Wentworth is now overseeing the whole business and enjoying every minute. "This week, I was on the bar doing the wine flights, serving the customers – and I loved it! If you're a good manager, you should be prepared to peel a potato, just as a commis would peel a potato. You'll see me polishing glasses until 1am because my restaurant manager is polishing glasses. Everyone picks up the hoover, including me. I'm an all-rounder, but I like that because if we're a waiter down or a chef down, everyone jumps in. We all help."

Working front of house also enables Wentworth – particularly with an open-plan kitchen (one of the first of its kind, famously installed by Perry-Smith) – to see everything, and she couldn't be prouder of her brigade's execution of her locally sourced, modern British cuisine. "I wouldn't be out here if I couldn't trust my team in the kitchen – that's massive for me. You're only as good as your team and they're amazing."

But while Wentworth and the team have much to celebrate in spite of the pandemic and endless months of closures, last summer they were left devastated when their colleague and head pastry chef, Craig Akehurst, died from mesothelioma, a rare cancer that forms in the lining of the lungs or abdomen. He was 33. "Me and Craig were best friends," she explains. "We still are."

Akehurst first battled cancer at the age of 15, and started to develop his most recent symptoms in December 2020. "He came into work with a blue face, blue lips," says Wentworth, who made him ring the doctor immediately. Two weeks later, he was unwell again and Wentworth insisted he call the doctor once more, stressing that he should say he had cancer in the past. Akehurst spent a period in hospital before learning, crushingly, that his cancer was back. He underwent immunotherapy treatment, but it wasn't successful, and the doctors advised follow-up courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. "Craig was so chilled, he wasn't fearful at all. He was more upset that I was on my own running the restaurant," says Wentworth.

He kept buoyant through lockdown, despite few people being able to visit him because of Covid, by being in constant contact with Wentworth and the team. But by June, he started to deteriorate. "Even though things were getting tough for him, he was joking every day. He was such a strong man – the strongest person I've ever known," she says. In July Wentworth had a vaccination so she could visit him in hospital, "but I had an allergic reaction and ended up with shingles and mumps. I was so ill and so upset that I couldn't see Craig."

As time went on, the text messages that were once every 10 minutes between them went to one every half an hour, then an hour, then two hours... Then he stopped texting completely. "I knew he was reading my messages, so I thought that was fine. But then the doctors asked Craig's parents to go to the hospital. The next morning, they said to his partner, Magda, and his parents that they needed to stop the [life-support] machine. That was it."

Despite their grief, Wentworth and the team were faced with a fully booked restaurant. "It was fucking hard. I've never had to deal with anything like that – someone working with you every single day and then passing away. I was close to Craig – I saw him more than I saw my boyfriend, Louis. Craig's mum and dad asked me to do the wake, which we did, and we also attended the funeral, and, thankfully, Chris Tanner came to help me."

Understandably, Wentworth took Akehurst's death badly. "I was drinking quite a bit until my dad shouted at me and said ‘Elly, you can't do this, you've got a team.' It was just my reaction. I was fine during the day, but when I got home, I was having a drink. I was trying to look after Magda, because that's what Craig would have wanted – we text every day. Magda still works in the business now, in operations, organising accommodation. We're really lucky to have her."

A photograph of Akehurst sits on the wall at the Angel, looking down onto the pass. "He's right by the kitchen, bless him, so he watches us when we have a shit service," she laughs. "It's been very tough for us, but we do it for him. That's our aim."

Learning on the job

While Wentworth won't be drawn on what her ultimate ambitions might be, she does point out that she has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants for 12 years. "It's all I know," she says. With frequent references to her former head chefs, she's not afraid to admit that she tried to gain as much knowledge as she could from each and every one of them.

"I wouldn't be where I am today without them. It sounds rude, but I rinsed their knowledge. For me, they are like my best friends now. But I've always had ambitions, of where I want to be or what I want to achieve by a certain age. And although I don't own this restaurant, I class it as my own and treat it as my own in terms of aspirations.

"For now, though, it's about maintaining a team, keeping busy, keeping bums on seats, and having the best relationship with customers – making sure the minute they walk through that door they have the best time and they love what we do. Accolades do come along, though, and I've been lucky in the four years that I've been here that we have won a lot of stuff. I must admit, I do look at the wall sometimes and think, ‘oh my god, is that what we've actually achieved?'"

Master and apprentice

"From the day Elly walked into the kitchen at Tanners you could see that there was something a little different about her," says Chris Tanner, the Roux brothers protégé who co-owns the Kentish Hare in Royal Tunbridge Wells and Barbican Kitchen in Plymouth with his brother James.

"At the time [2008], we'd just won AA Restaurant of the Year for England, so the atmosphere was fantastic and the team were buzzing. She was immediately immersed into a driven and committed team and she knew from the outset what she was coming into… it certainly opened her eyes to a focused, professional outlook, which she embraced.

"Eventually, James and I encouraged her to move on and she went on to work for some phenomenally talented chefs after us – we'd like to think that we steered her towards the right path. The thing with Elly is she's so respectful and very humble. It's refreshing to have met and mentored someone who has continued throughout her career to practice that.

"Unfortunately, she lost a big part of her team last year. Craig was such a talent and a pleasure to have known. In supporting her [Chris helped Wentworth to prepare for and host Craig's wake], we only did what anyone would expect friends to do to help them get through that loss. His passing was a massive blow to her. I'm sure Craig is looking down on her and I know she finds solace in that.

"Both myself and James, as well as our head chef at the Barbican Kitchen, are extremely proud of Elly. I think that what's she's achieved to date is only the tip of the iceberg. She's just coming into her own and you can see her confidence building all the time. She knows how hard this industry can be and always knows that we are at the end of a phone.

"It's so good to see her progressing and developing her own style. She loves Devon and the south-west and everything that the county offers all of us – stunning produce on our doorstep – which is something she experienced at Tanners and the Barbican Kitchen.

"I truly believe her greatest achievement hasn't happened yet. She's on the right path and is focused on achieving that. It's up to her how far she takes it, but watch this space!"

From the dinner menu

Roast hand-dived scallops Smoked taramasalata, orange, saffron, fennel

Milk-cured liver Spiced plum chutney, Sauternes, hazelnut

Black garlic risotto Sherry, parsley

Curtis Pitts venison Parsnip, seasonal pear, sloe gin, venison jus

Onion mille feuille Tarragon crémeux, Wiltshire truffle, charred baby onion, sherry

Day boat turbot Turnip pickle, preserved lemon, sea lettuce beurre blanc

Devonshire lamb Salt-baked beetroot, smoked chestnut, red kale, beetroot jus

Nut Butter brûlée Nashi pear, toasted pinenut

Baked apple souffle Crème fraïche sorbet, Calvados syrup

The Black Penny (As seen on Great British Menu 2020) Chocolate, banana, sesame

Two courses, £62; three courses, £72

www.theangeldartmouth.co.uk