FOOD & DRINK
Serving up the future on Wedgwood
Serving up the future on Wedgwood
At Lunar, entrepreneur Craig Wilkinson is bringing together Staffordshire’ s industrial heritage, local creativity and a more accessible vision of modern dining. In the first of Feature Focus’ s new series celebrating the county’ s food and drink businesses, Karl Holbrook discovers a restaurant built on reinvention- and an owner who rarely stands still.
Craig Wilkinson is late for our interview, but he has a fairly compelling excuse.
He is on another call about a new home for The Murder Express, the immersive dining production he has run in London for the past eight years. The attraction is moving from a railway arch in Shoreditch to a larger venue near London Bridge, where building work is about to begin. There is a new designer, a project manager who needs convincing and a show still to be written. His next appointment is with the managing director of Andrew Lloyd Webber’ s ticketing business.
By the time we speak, one delayed meeting is already threatening to derail the rest of the morning.
It is a fitting introduction to an entrepreneur whose working life stretches across restaurants, cafés, live entertainment, international event staffing and technology- and whose businesses appear to be in almost constant motion.
Yet Wilkinson is taking the call from one of the ventures closest to his heart- Lunar, the restaurant he created at World of Wedgwood in Barlaston.
“ Our audience is local, but we also have national and international visitors,” he says.“ We still have people coming here from all over the world.”
That combination of local community and global reach, history and reinvention, sits at the heart of what Lunar is all about. The restaurant occupies a site synonymous with Staffordshire’ s ceramic heritage, but Wilkinson has never wanted it to feel like a museum piece.
“ Wedgwood is obviously one of the oldest brands in the world, and I’ m so proud to be here,” he says.“ You meet people from China, Japan, Australia and America. Wedgwood has always been this thing that might be in your granny’ s cabinet, come out once a year, or never actually leave it, because you’ d be too frightened to eat on it. But it deserves to be front and centre.
“ What we’ ve done with Lunar is what I call a modern dining experience. It was about putting two great British staples together- proper food on Wedgwood.”
It is a playful image, but one that neatly captures the idea at the heart of a concept that continues to pull visitors from around the world. Respect the heritage, then flip it on its head and push it forward.
Fine dining for 2026
CRAIG WILKINSON – ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR 2026
“ Modern dining experience” can sound like a piece of hospitality jargon but Wilkinson’ s explanation is more straightforward.
“ It’ s basically fine dining in 2026,” he says.“ Fine dining doesn’ t have to mean silver-service waiters and linen everywhere. It’ s fine dining because you’ re eating on Wedgwood but at the same time you can have a full English breakfast here.”
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