Celebrity chef Tom Kerridge has announced he is parting ways with Gary Neville on their restaurant The Bull and Bear in Manchester. Michelin Star holding chef Tom opened the high end pub/restaurant concept inside the Stock Exchange Hotel three years ago in Manchester city centre.
The luxurious hotel, based in the former stock exchange building, is co-owned by former Manchester United footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs' GG Hospitality and hotelier Winston Zahra. But The Bull & Bear restaurant, with Tom's menu, will serve up for the last time on December 31, it has been confirmed today.
It has not yet been announced who will take over the restaurant space inside the award-winning hotel in the new year.
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In a statement released today, Tom said: "Gary and I have jointly agreed to end our partnership at The Bull & Bear within the Stock Exchange Hotel in Manchester and will part ways on the 31st December 2022.
"It follows a three-year successful partnership with GG Hospitality which has seen the hotel go from strength to strength with consistently high occupancy rates. We feel the need to concentrate on our Marlow and London sites and this allows us to look at further opportunities within these areas, therefore we have mutually decided to part ways.
"We would like to thank all our guests for the amazing support they have given us, and all staff have been offered roles elsewhere within the business and Head Chef Connor Black is returning to Australia where he worked for several years. We wish GG Hospitality and The Stock Exchange all the success in the future.”
Both Gary and Tom issued a joint video statement too from inside the Bull and Bear where they talked more about the reasons for ending the partnership. They insisted there was "no falling out" and that it was based on the way the hotel and restaurant were progressing on different trajectories.
Gary said in the video: "This is quite a unique situation but myself and Tom have been talking over the partnership we've had over the past three years at The Bull and Bear. To cut a long story short we are going to be announcing that our partnership with Tom will end in January and we've been discussing it over the past three or four months about the needs of the hotel.
"Looking at the fact of what the hotel needs are and what the Stock Exchange needs are, we have great aspirations we're the number one hotel in Manchester at the moment and how that sometimes screams against the requirement of the F&B operation. To be fair we've spoken about it openly."
Tom added: "What we found is the Bull and Bear hasn't been able to open as a seven day business, but the hotel is a seven day business and is going from strength to strength. So we found the two businesses are beginning to sit slightly differently in those positions.
"So we've decided between us that the Bull and Bear as of January 1 will be no more, and we can concentrate on our businesses, batten down the hatches down in Marlow and London. But for Manchester it's goodbye for now."
Gary joked about Tom being a big Manchester United fan and watching the most recent game together. He thanked Tom for the past three years and said he'd "enjoyed every single minute of it."
Tom added: "There is no falling out".
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