Jamie May replaces Aaron Mulliss who is leaving the kitchen after more than a decade to pursue new venues, The Morning Advertiser’s sister title Big Hospitality reported.
Kerridge said: “Jamie has worked alongside me for eight years, moving from junior sous chef and now as the new head chef.
“This is the perfect next step for Jamie and the Hand & Flowers, his creativity, vision and passion for food encompasses everything we do [here]."
Favourite pub chef
He added: “He understands guests’ needs and we are very much looking forward to seeing Jamie progress professionally and personally in this new role.”
Meanwhile, Kerridge was voted the UK’s favourite pub chef last year, in a survey based on cookbook sales over the past two decades.
The two Michelin-starred chef who runs three pubs – the Hand & Flowers, the Coach and the Butcher’s Tap, all in Marlow, Buckinghamshire – was number 11 on the list.
He opened a new restaurant, Kerridge’s Bar & Grill, his first site in London, this month (September), at the Corinthia Hotel London in Westminster.
Popular cuisine
The research, based on cookbook sales, was carried out by price comparison website GoCompare which studied the UK’s favourite chefs, ranked by the popularity of their books to have appeared on Amazon’s best-selling books chart between 1998 and 2018.
Kerridge wasn’t the only pub chef to be mentioned with Heston Blumenthal, who owns the Hind’s Head at Bray, Berkshire, coming in at number 19.
GoCompare also revealed the most popular cuisine from Amazon’s best-selling books archive, which was fusion, with British-inspired food in second place, and veggie or vegan in third.
When it came to the most popular category of genre cookbook, diets and healthy eating topped the list with 73 books.