What changes on 4 November
The Grand, York will run a new dining concept at Legacy from 4 November 2026. Culinary Director Kevin Bonello leads the change, and the hotel announced the plan on 18 September 2026.
Legacy keeps its name and its room. The menu, the sourcing and the table setting change. The announcement describes a redressed dining room and a new menu structure.
Three Seasons, three menus
The new approach is called Three Seasons. Ingredients and their origins sit at the centre of the restaurant, and the menus move with ingredient availability and local seasonality.
Game & Wild opens the sequence in November. Foraged & Roots follows from February. Fish & Harvest arrives in June. A guest booking in January eats from Game & Wild, and a guest booking in July eats from Fish & Harvest.
Sourcing runs through farmers, producers and fishers across Yorkshire. The kitchen draws on the hotel's own rooftop beehives, and Bonello forages ingredients from his village on the outskirts of York.
What the room asks of a booking
Legacy holds an AA Three Rosette award. Dinner runs Wednesday to Sunday, 18:30 to 20:30. The restaurant seats no children, infants or prams. Cancellations inside 24 hours carry a fee of £100 per person for dinner and £50 per person for lunch.
Sommelier Derek Scaife sets the wine pairings. Murals painted by Lily Roberts, a former restaurant employee and a local artist, go on the walls. A bespoke cheese trolley built by the York woodworker Ollie Abell carries house and imported cheeses with the hotel's rooftop honeycomb, a handcrafted fruit cake and house chutneys. Bonello hand-carves the utensils and the wooden cutlery rests, and fermentation cupboards form part of the restaurant.
The kitchen behind the menu
Bonello joined the hotel in 2023 and has overseen Legacy since the Evolution through the Eras menu launched in June 2024. His career spans more than two decades and includes the culinary directorship at De Mondion, a Michelin-starred restaurant in his native Malta. He leads the hotel's culinary direction across its restaurants and the cookery school.
Bonello said: “Legacy’s new future is one that allows the ingredients shine. The only thing taking centre stage in our restaurant is the food and the guest experience.”
Adam Dyke, general manager at The Grand, York, said: “This is a new Legacy and this is Yorkshire served in a way that has never been done before.”
The property a York stay is built on
The Grand, York stands at Station Rise, YO1 6GD. The hotel’s own account records that the building opened in 1906 as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway, designed by William Bell and Horace Field, and was restored to its original splendour in 2010. It trades as a five-star hotel.
Dining at the property runs across Legacy, The Rise, SubRosa and the 1906 bar. The Rise carries an AA Rosette. Event space includes the Grand Boardroom, the White Rose Lounge and The Chairman’s Suite with its own private bar.
A stay package on the hotel’s Legacy page starts at £349 per room and covers overnight accommodation, breakfast and a £50 per person dining allowance across the venues.
The figures published with the announcement put York’s 2025 visitor total at 8.88 million and tourism’s contribution to the city economy at £2.08 billion, with food and drink taking 27 percent of visitor expenditure.
What the announcement leaves open
No source read for this article carries a price for a Three Seasons menu, a cover count for Legacy, a change to the service times, or a date when the November, February and June menus open for booking.