From chauffeured car to behind the bar: The celebrities making the move to hospitality

Adam Hills 

Adam Hills, the Australian stand-up comedian and presenter of Channel 4’s The Last Leg, is a co-owner of compatriot chef Scott Hallsworth’s Freak Scene pan-Asian restaurants.  

Hills tried fellow Aussie Hallsworth’s cooking at what was then Freak Scene Soho (which subsequently closed during the pandemic) and says he was “blown away” by his cooking – particularly the chef’s tuna sashimi pizza, which Hills says “is still one of the best things I have ever eaten”. 

So impressed was Hills that he invested £20,000 in Freak Scene’s 2023 revival, with the flagship venue in Parsons Green, west London, rebranded as a ‘Japanese superdiner’ called Freak Momma in September last year, while a second site in Balham, south London, remains under the Freak Scene banner.  

Eating and observing is pretty much where Hills’ hands-on involvement ends though. “I don’t know about cooking and cheffing, but I do know audiences and crowds. So if there’s anything I notice about the vibe, then I might say something,” he says. 

The revived restaurant concept also caught the eye of the Evolv Collection (formerly D&D London) last year, with Hallsworth bringing a pop-up residency to 100 Wardour Street in London’s Soho in the group’s first restaurant collaboration under new chief executive Martin Williams. 

Kim and Andy Murray

Cromlix, the 34-acre county house hotel, has long been dear to the Murrays. Andy hails from nearby Dunblane and his grandparents were among the first guests to hold an event at the hotel when it opened in 1981. Andy’s brother, Jamie, married in Cromlix’s 19th-century chapel in 2010, and Kim and Andy wed at the property five years later. 

The Murrays acquired the site in 2013 for almost £2m, taking over the running of the property personally in 2023 with a dramatic refurbishment overseen by Kim with support from Belfast-based interior designer Suzanne Garuda. 

Under the pair’s eye, Cromlix’s décor has shifted away from traditional tartan. Fifteen bedrooms in the main house are named after local wildflowers and plants, as opposed to the Scottish heroes they were named after previously. 

The Cromlix is currently under its next phase of redevelopment to turn it into a food-led destination. The hotel is set to open two new restaurants in mid-May overseen by executive head chef James Mearing, while the existing 45-seat Glasshouse restaurant, which had three AA rosettes, is being repurposed as an afternoon tea and event space. 

James Blunt 

James Blunt, the singer famed for being relentlessly positive in the face of online put-downs, opened the Fox & Pheasant in Chelsea in 2018 after a restoration that put the business firmly in the bracket of passion project. According to reports at the time, he oversaw every detail, having sketched the bar area in a hotel while on tour and buying much of the furniture himself on eBay.  

The Fox & Pheasant is described as “a little country pub tucked away in a corner of Chelsea” and there’s no doubt that Blunt’s charm is reflected in an interior that is warm and welcoming. The menu might not be as accessible as some of his hits, but it would play well with the south-west London locals, with the likes of venison carpaccio, pickled rhubarb, pecorino curd and game-dripping croutons, and tikka masala monkfish and Bombay potatoes with chard and crispy mussels on the menu.

Owner James Blunt at the bar. Photos: www.facebook.com/thefoxandpheasantpub/photos

Surprisingly, given its ownership and regular appearance in restaurant guides, the gastropub hasn’t been widely reviewed, but feedback in Hardens references the cosy bar and delicious food, with one reader suggesting it’s “the perfect place for a pint of beer and some roast pork”. 

Like his singing career, Blunt has put all his energy into the project and claims to regularly serve pints or to roll up his sleeves in the pot wash. Reassuringly, there are no reports of him serenading locals with ‘You’re Beautiful’, even after a few of his preferred Estrella. 

Jodie Kidd 

Photo: www.facebook.com/thefoxandpheasantpub/photos

Jodie Kidd has worn many hats over the course of her career – from model and TV personality to polo player and race car driver. Her days behind the wheel even saw her top the leader board for TV show Top Gear’s ‘star in a reasonably priced car’ segment, fronted by fellow hospitality transferee Jeremy Clarkson. 

Kidd turned her hand to hospitality in 2017 when she opened the Half Moon in Kirdford, West Sussex, in what she describes as “a moment of madness”.  

Speaking to The Standard, Kidd said: “It was going to become houses. This beautiful 16th-century coaching inn could have been lost forever, and that would have stripped the heart out of this village.” 

It was a moment of madness that paid off – a year after Kidd took over the countryside pub it received two AA rosettes, which it retains to this day. 

The Half Moon, which serves dishes such as gin-cured salmon with aji amarillo and homemade crumpet, is decorated with mementoes from Kidd’s life, including seats made from saddle leather from her horse-riding days and framed racing car photographs on the walls. Much of the menu’s vegetable produce also comes from the pub’s own kitchen garden.  

Kidd is not just a successful publican, but a vocal one too. She has been part of the Long Live the Local campaign since 2021, when she presented a petition calling for a reduction in business rates and beer duty to Downing Street, and took part in the Three Landlords Walk into a Bar podcast last year, where she discussed the lack of support for hospitality from government. Kidd also shuttered the pub for three days in September following repeated incidents of staff abuse, allowing employees time to recover and highlighting the impact of these such events on hospitality workers.