18 | Aycliffe Today Business
Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 19
“The facility itself is
absolutely amazing, and it’s
fantastic for the area.
”
Chef Chris Coleman has taken
up his new role at ROF 59 on
Aycliffe Business Park.
Receptionists Naomi
Jackson, Kathryn Runciman
and Gaye Stephenson have
also joined the new team.
ROYAL
REVOLUTION
From Bill Clinton to Cher, experienced French cuisine chef
Chris Coleman talks to Martin Walker about his new role at
ROF 59 on Aycliffe Business Park...
He isn’t your average chef.
Chris Coleman boasts a colourful CV
which includes several years’ service in Her
Majesty’s Royal Air Force.
Ironic, then, that the next stop on his
career path would be at ROF 59 on Aycliffe
Business Park - one of the former Royal
Ordnance Factories which was purpose-built
in the 1940s for the war effort.
During his time with the RAF Chris cooked
,
for then Prime Minister John Major in the
1990s as well as American President Bill
Clinton.
He then spent 10 years in Cher, a central
region of France, after buying and renovating
a boutique hotel and making the most of his
classical French cuisine qualifications.
Now the 51-year-old, originally from
Cambridgeshire, has swapped the Continent
for County Durham as he embarks on a
culinary revolution at Aycliffe’s newest leisure
facility.
Chris has taken on the role of head chef at
ROF 59 after spotting the job opportunity on
a recruitment website.
“I’ve always loved a challenge, he says.
”
“After my RAF days I bought a 10-bedroom
boutique hotel and restaurant in Graçay - a
little village in the Cher region of France which hadn’t been touched for 100 years or
more.
“I had to restore it. There was only one ensuite bathroom and by the time I sold it there
was 10. Three miles of copper piping had to
go into it and I made all the tables myself.
“I call it my big adventure, and it certainly
was.
”
Chris served across most of the country
and all over the world with the RAF including
,
a stint at RAF Brampton, near [