Chris Bassett: Michelin star chef at Portland

Chris Bassett’s cooking style

Portland’s cooking is seasonal, ingredient-led and deliberately restrained.

The menu is often reprinted after lunch as ingredients run out and are replaced, and the Michelin Guide highlights a kitchen that does as little as possible to its raw ingredients, with every component on the plate there to lift another.

Dishes have included roast monkfish with charred brassicas, potato purée and an Exmoor caviar sauce, and Sika venison with a warm beetroot terrine, crispy capers, kalettes and horseradish.

Snacks are a fixture, from a mushroom and Parmesan macaron to a duck sausage roll with clementine, and there is always pastry on the menu, with apple tart tatin a regular for pudding.

The bread course of sourdough, soda bread, whey butter and a hollandaise infused with toasted hay has become one of the restaurant’s signatures.

Chris told OpenTable: “Fine dining can sometimes feel intimidating, but our team has a real talent for making people feel instantly comfortable.”

That approachability has been part of Portland’s identity from the start.

William said: “Fine dining was never our aim. Our focus has always been on serving accomplished, yet above all, delicious food in a warm and welcoming setting.”

Michelin star at Portland

Portland was awarded its Michelin star in the 2016 Michelin Guide Great Britain & Ireland, around nine months after opening, under founding chef Merlin Labron-Johnson.

The star predates Chris’s time as executive chef, but it has been retained through several changes in the kitchen since Merlin’s departure in 2018.

It was most recently reconfirmed at the Michelin Guide Great Britain & Ireland ceremony in Dublin on Monday, February 9, 2026.

Chris told OpenTable: “Retaining our Michelin star every year since opening is something the whole team is immensely proud of.”

The guide sums up the restaurant simply, noting that “the pared-down look of the room matches the understated food.”

Beyond Portland

Chris also leads the kitchen at Clipstone, giving him oversight of two of Woodhead’s three Fitzrovia restaurants.

The group’s portfolio also includes The Quality Chop House, Quality Wines and 64 Goodge Street, the Gallic-inspired restaurant that opened in August 2023 and won a Michelin star in February 2025, giving Woodhead two starred restaurants within walking distance of each other.

With Portland now past its tenth birthday and its star intact, Chris’s task is keeping a decade-old restaurant as sharp and unfussy as the one that won recognition within months of opening.