A WORLD-TRAVELLED chef from the Ribble Valley has made her own dreams come true by earning the chance to run her own kitchens back home.

Tosside chef Stephanie Moon begins the New Year as head at one of the north's prestigious restaurants after a hugely successful career which has taken her across the globe.

Stephanie, 26, has been sous chef for several months at Wood Hall in Linton, near Wetherby, but when head chef Andrew Mitchell left to develop Linda McCartney's vegetarian range, the farmer's daughter from the Ribble Valley got the top job.

Now Stephanie and her team of seven kitchen staff are embarking on 1996 at Wood Hall country hotel with a vast range of culinary skills at their disposal. Stephanie, whose parents Colin and Kaye live in Tosside, said: "The hotel has 43 bedrooms and caters for anything from functions of over 100 people, to private dinners, business meetings and restaurant meals.

"It will give me great scope to develop dishes and I am very much looking forward to the coming 12 months."

Stephanie's career has taken her from work experience in hotels in Harrogate, to a placement at the Dorchester Hotel in London where she was privileged to work under famous chef Anton Mosimann.

From there she travelled to hotels in Switzerland and Munich, before returning to England to work at the Plough Inn, Wigglesworth, and then back to the Dorchester.

A 12-month stint in Australia gave Stephaine a taste for cuisine Down Under, and then she came back home to the job at Wood Hall.

The hotel is a five crown deluxe, three red star Egon Ronay recommended establishment.

She added: "Every chef wants to run their own kitchens and this is my chance to keep Wood Hall right on the culinary map."

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