Frances Atkins

Head chef at the Yorke Arms in Yorkshire, Atkins has laid claim to a Michelin star since 2003, and her restaurant has won a laundry list of awards - from Best UK Restaurant for Game Cooking to the Good Food Guide’s Restaurant of the Year of 2007/8. She started at Ilkley’s Box Tree and, besides a 10-year hiatus, has been cooking and catering since.

Atkins doesn't make food complicated for its own sake - as Square Meal said, 'there is enough on each plate to maintain interest, but not so much that it muddies the picture’. However, she does marry intriguing and contrasting ingredients that impress as much through invention and combination as the technical flair with which they’re prepared.

Giles Coren called the Yorke Arms 'almost perfect'. Atkins’s treatment of crab has enthralled food writers, with one blogger calling her Whitby crab potage 'extraordinary', and Jay Rayner in the Guardian describing it as 'light and bright and refreshing'.

Frances has contributed recipes to both of the Great British Chefs apps - one of the most talked about being a Rhubarb semifreddo and pistachio cream with a honey madeleine