Dixon swaps Pheasant Inn for the Snooty Fox

Clive Dixon is quitting as chef-patron of the Pheasant Inn in Cambridgeshire to buy a property in Northamptonshire with his business partner and front-of-house manager David Hennigan.

They are moving to the Snooty Fox in the village of Lowick, near Kettering, on 10 November.

The 15th-century building has a 50-seat restaurant and a 50-seat bar.

Hennigan said the kitchen and restaurant would be revamped before they started serving food at the end of this month. The bar will be refurbished in January.

Hennigan said the Snooty Fox, like the Pheasant, would serve modern British food with European and Mediterranean influences. Only the bar will allow smoking, but it will feature the same menu as the restaurant, along with a range of traditional English dishes such as Cornish pasties and chip butties.

Dixon became chef-patron of the Pheasant Inn in February 2002 and has, for the past two years, held a Michelin Bib Gourmand and the title of Cambridgeshire Pub of the Year from the Good Pub Guide.

He became a head chef at the Old Swan in Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire, held a Michelin star for four years at the Lords of the Manor hotel in Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire, and spent two years at Merchants restaurant in Nottingham.

Dixon and Hennigan are taking the Pheasant's pastry chef and chef de partie with them.

Pheasant owner John Hoskins will announce a new chef-patron in January.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 6 - 12 November 2003