Nick Deverall-Smith, a protégée of Gordon Ramsay who is perhaps best known for his appearance on the BBC’s Great British Menu, has been accused of ranting aggressively at a pregnant woman and her partner after they made a noise complaint while staying at his £120 a night Cotswolds pub.
Neil Goulding and his partner Jade were staying at the Churchill Arms gastropub on Valentine’s Day for what was supposed to be a romantic getaway. Their evening was rather ruined when the volume of music in the pub was ramped up for a lock-in after the couple had gone to bed in the rooms upstairs. After suffering the noise for a few hours, the couple went down at 1am to politely request for the volume to be turned down. They were reportedly met with a torrent of abuse from Deverell-Smith, who appeared to have been drinking; “He said if we didn’t like it we could ‘f*** off out of his pub’”
"He said it was a country pub so what did we expect. Around 2am he was at our door ranting at us again.
“The people in the next room came to see what was going on. He had a row with them too.”
Nick Deverell-Smith, chef propietor at The Churchill Arms
While the chef was nowhere to be seen when the couple checked out the following morning, he told the People: “An incident did occur in my pub on Valentine’s Day which culminated in a necessary discussion between myself and a guest.
"I was not under the influence of alcohol nor was blasphemous language used.”
Deverell-Smith, who is a former junior chef of the year, was praised on the BBC’s Great British Menu for his dishes “inspired by the precision of Wimbledon’s grass, traditional English teas and the greatest games in Wimbledon’s history” when he appeared on the twelfth series of the show.
Excited about the next series of the Great British Menu? Read our definitive guide to the 2020 show here.