A live performance by Michelin-starred chef Tommy Banks, exploring the highs and lows of life in the hospitality industry, leadership pressures, and business challenges.
Tommy Banks brings Spinning Plates: LIVE! to the York Theatre Royal on Friday 17 July, a one-night-only show in the Main House. If you've eaten at his restaurants, you know the name, but this isn't a cooking demonstration. It's a stage show told across three intersecting timelines, and it's Banks talking about his own life in hospitality rather than showing you how to plate a dish.
For those who don't know the background, Banks is a Michelin-starred chef and a well-known face in the North Yorkshire food scene. He grew up in Oldstead with a five-generation farming heritage and became the youngest Michelin-starred chef in Britain at 24. He runs The Black Swan at Oldstead, which hits its 20th anniversary in August 2026, and Roots here in York, which earned its own Michelin star in 2021. He's also appeared on BBC Two's The Great British Menu and taken his catering to the scale of Lord's Cricket Ground and Twickenham Stadium.
Spinning Plates looks at the side of that career that doesn't make it onto the menu. The three timelines let him jump between different periods of his life, and he talks through the highs and lows of working in hospitality, the pressures of leadership, and what it's actually like running a business in a tough economic climate. He describes it as a look at ambition, vulnerability, and risk, and it's a one-off performance, so there aren't other dates to catch if you miss this one.
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It's on Friday 17 July in the Main House at York Theatre Royal. If you've followed his work from Oldstead to York, this is a chance to hear the story behind the restaurants.
