THE award-winning Eastbury Hotel in Sherborne has a new head chef, Matt Street, who has been working at the hotel for six years and aims to continue its tradition of serving outstanding, locally sourced food in the beautiful conservatory restaurant.

Matt, who is 29, reached the knock-out stages of MasterChef The Professionals in the quarter finals in 2009 and made it through to the regional finals of the Roux scholarship the same year.

Matt takes over the reins at an exciting time for The Eastbury, which has just taken Silver at the South West Tourism Awards 2013 in the Taste of the South West category. It also picked up several awards in the inaugural 2013 Dorset Tourism Awards, gold for Eating Out, silver for Hotel of the Year, and the Winners Award for its consistency of excellence and ambassadorial role for Dorset.

In July 2013 The Eastbury became one of the first Dorset businesses to join, as a founder member, the new Dorset Food & Drink group.

Matt says: “I have been working at The Eastbury for the past six years and for me this is very much business as usual, producing great food in a lovely setting, using only the very best of local produce as well as herbs, edible flowers and honey from our own beehives.

“Our new menu sums up my approach to cooking, which is simplifying refinement – taking classics and giving them a modern twist, but always with clean, elegant and simple flavours. Whether it’s kiln-roasted salmon, with cucumber, watercress and crème fraiche or a really well-cooked steak and chips, along with classic puddings such as parfaits, pannacottas and crumbles, it’s all about giving people what they want, without fuss or over-complication.