Tom and Laurissa Heywood: Destination dining at Pignut & The Hare

At Pignut & The Hare in Scawton, Tom and Laurissa Heywood are building a remote restaurant with rooms around tasting menus, wine, foraging, sustainability and a very personal style of hospitality.

Their move from Helmsley to the former Hare has given them more space, four rooms and the chance to create a fuller guest experience. It has also raised the stakes commercially in a rural location and tough hospitality market.

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Making Pignut & The Hare work in Scawton

For Tom, it starts with word of mouth.

“Word of mouth, but also we do offer something slightly different in that we change the menu quite often,” said Tom.

“A lot of people like to come back again and again because it’s different dishes, different concepts.”

That matters when the restaurant is not relying on passing trade. Tom said some guests come back once a month, despite not being local.

The changing menu is part of that draw, alongside monthly development nights, where diners try new dishes and are asked for feedback.

“They feel like they’re part of the restaurant, rather than just coming and eating and not really having a voice in our place,” he said.

“Here, it is our home, so we’re happy for everyone to have an input.”

Why the move from Helmsley mattered

Pignut started in Helmsley, but the move to Scawton has changed what Tom and Laurissa can build.

For Tom, who has made the semi-finals of National Chef of the Year 2026, the biggest difference is space. The site gives them gardens, room to grow produce, access to the countryside and the ability to forage nearby.

“We always wanted to do that,” Tom said.

“The journey of planting something from seed, seeing it grow and then putting it out to people ties it all together really nicely.”

For Laurissa, the rooms allow the couple to look after guests from arrival through to breakfast, rather than sending them somewhere else after dinner.

“We wanted the rooms because everyone was coming to eat with us, but they were staying in all the other hotels,” Laurissa said.

“So we thought, why not us? If we had the rooms, they could stay with us and it makes more sense.

“If they have a bad experience somewhere else but eat with us, that almost gives them a negative experience overall.

“Now it’s all on us and we can make it as good as we want.”

There is a personal thread to the site for Tom, too. Around 10 years ago, after eating at The Hare, he rang to ask about a job.

“I came to eat here and thought it was really good,” Tom said.

“It was amazing, so I thought, ‘I want to work there.’”

The job never happened, but the building stayed in his mind.

“I always thought one day I’d love to have something like this,” he said.

A tasting menu with flexibility

Pignut & The Hare is built around a tasting-menu format, with a half menu at £75 and a full menu at £120.

Tom said the full menu is currently the most popular, but the smaller menu gives guests flexibility. Diners can also add dishes, rather than being locked into one format.

The format allows Tom to show the small suppliers the restaurant works with, while giving the kitchen more control over waste and staffing.

In a small restaurant, à la carte brings uncertainty around orders, prep and staffing.

“If you have à la carte, you’re going to need double the staff because you never know what you’re going to sell,” Tom said.

“There’s definitely less waste with a tasting menu.”

That does not mean the experience is rigid.

Laurissa said guests can swap dishes if there is something they really do not like, while Tom said the team tries to cater for most dietary requirements where possible.

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Laurissa Heywood on wine and guest confidence

Laurissa’s role is central to the restaurant’s identity. She is shaping how guests settle in, how they approach the wine list and how the food and drink come together.

“We get quite a few people who sit down and I can tell they don’t know any of the wines on the list,” she said.

Rather than giving guests a fixed list of pairings and leaving them to it, Laurissa talks to them first.

“What would you usually drink?” Laurissa said.

“Do you want something you would usually drink, something similar, or would you want something that’s going to work with the food but still has similarities?”

The pairings are guided by those conversations.

“I don’t give you the list of pairings because I try to tailor that from talking to guests and knowing what kind of wines they usually go for,” she said.

“I try to make them feel as comfortable as possible so they can ask about it, because I know the wine list can be a bit daunting when people first look at it.”

Sustainability without overplaying it

Sustainability is part of Pignut & The Hare, but Tom and Laurissa talk about it in practical terms.

The wastage course changes as the menu changes, using trimmings and by-products from the kitchen.

“We wanted the impact of the word as well,” Tom said.

“We wanted it to sound a bit gnarly, a bit nasty in some ways, because wastage is seen as a nasty thing.

“We’re trying to show that you don’t have to throw it in the bin. You can use it and it comes out really tasty.”

Laurissa said the name makes guests stop and ask questions.

“People ask, ‘why call it wastage?’” she said.

“But by the end of the meal, they understand it couldn’t really be anything else.”

Foraging is another part of the restaurant’s identity, while the Gloucester Old Spot pigs sit within the wider direction Tom and Laurissa want to keep developing.

Asked which dish best explains Pignut & The Hare right now, Tom chose the pork dish, using organic pork from Castle Howard, aged in-house, barbecued and served with foraged hedge garlic, black pudding and local cider.

“It’s quite simple and local, but there’s loads of work behind it,” he said.

“It has tons of flavour involved.”

The reality behind the move

There is romance in a restaurant with rooms in the North Yorkshire countryside, but the reality is hard work.

The move from Helmsley to Scawton has brought more space, more opportunity and more pressure. Before the move, the business was Tom, Laurissa and two part-time staff. Now, they have six people including themselves.

“At Pignut in Helmsley, if we had no bookings, we weren’t paying anyone that night, so it was fine,” Tom said.

“We could just do prep or take a night off. Now we need the bookings because we’ve got four people to pay and they need their money at the end of the month.”

For Laurissa, staffing has been the hardest financial decision since the move.

“That’s always scary,” she said.

“It’s the thing that keeps me awake at night.”

Tom also pointed to rising employment costs and the challenge of recruiting in a rural location as part of the wider pressure facing hospitality.

The future of hospitality is interaction

One of the strongest themes in the conversation is interaction, from development nights and wine pairings to foraging, rooms, the cookbook and the way Tom and Laurissa want guests to feel comfortable asking questions.

“It’s more interaction for the customer,” Laurissa said.

“I feel like that is the future of hospitality.”

Tom feels the same.

“I do think interaction with customers is the future of hospitality,” he said.

“Being interactive with a customer makes them feel at home and they’re going to have a better time straight away.”

The point is not to create distance between the restaurant and the guest. It is to close it.

What comes next for Pignut & The Hare

Asked what success looks like in five years, Laurissa’s first answer was the garden.

“Hopefully develop the gardens more,” she said.

“If we can develop the gardens more, then the experience can extend to the gardens.”

Tom’s answer was more direct.

“Hopefully we’re still here,” he said.

“That’s number one.”

The ambition is to keep improving the food, bring in more suppliers, grow the restaurant’s reputation and continue to make the experience more interactive.

Laurissa added: “We’re not rigid and stuck. If it needs to change, it needs to change.”

At Pignut & The Hare, the project is still young. But the intent is clear.