Marcus Wilcox cooks again at Outbuildings in Dorset
The chef who won, then lost, Dorset's only Michelin star at Sienna is back behind the stove as head chef of The Cart Shed, after a year and a half away from kitchens.
Marcus Wilcox, the chef who won and then lost Dorset's only Michelin star at Sienna in Dorchester, is cooking professionally again as head chef of The Cart Shed, the restaurant at Outbuildings Dorset in Bridport.
Wilcox grew up on the Dorset and Somerset border, near Yeovil. In 2013, while working at The Rose and Crown in Trent, near Sherborne, he reached the semi-finals of MasterChef: The Professionals.
In 2015, aged 26, he took over Sienna in Dorchester from Russell Brown, keeping the restaurant's Michelin star and making it, at the time, Dorset's only starred address. He did not hold onto it: Sienna was dropped from the 2016 guide, and the restaurant later closed during the pandemic.
A chef who lost a star in Dorchester finds a second kitchen on a Dorset farm instead of another dining room in town.
Wilcox went back to The Rose and Crown, then stepped away from professional kitchens for around a year and a half to do landscaping work with his brother.
"I felt my break was over, so I wanted to get back into it and put a stamp on something," he said of his decision to return earlier this year.
Still the same chef
"I'm still the same chef and still the same person," Wilcox said. Dom Sanchez, who co-owns Outbuildings Dorset, described his cooking as "so exquisite and so intelligent and so creative and so smart," while co-owner Ed Whitehead said Wilcox carries none of the ego the description might suggest: "he doesn't really have an ego, it's more like 'yeah, I can cook'."
Outbuildings Dorset is a hotel in Bridport run by married couple Dom Sanchez and Ed Whitehead, who took over the business during the pandemic from Ed's parents, on Ed's family farm. Ed works as the hotel's creative director and designer, and his brother George handles on-site carpentry. Most guests travel from London, Surrey, Kent, Bristol and Bournemouth.
A farm restaurant opens its doors
The Cart Shed, the hotel's main restaurant, opened in 2023 and has recently started taking bookings from non-residents as well as hotel guests. Its relaxed menu has included duck ragu with squid, a sharing steak and apple parfait, built on local lamb and fish, Creedy Carver duck and apples from the farm's own orchard.
Wilcox's return lands in the same week as another English head chef moving back into a kitchen he once led, though his route back runs through a farm restaurant rather than a Michelin hotel.
