Mates, Flames and Big Plans: A Conversation with Chefs-Founders George Uren and Adam Thomas, Pit Kitchen
Tucked away in a rustic barn on Todenham Farm, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Pit Kitchen has become one of the North Cotswolds’ hottest dining destinations. Founded by childhood friends George Uren and Adam Thomas, the restaurant has built a loyal following for its bold, fire-led cooking, locally sourced ingredients and refreshingly relaxed atmosphere.
From humble beginnings in a shipping container to viral Instagram fame and ambitious expansion plans, Pit Kitchen is going places. The Knife caught up with George and Adam to talk friendship, flames, favourite dishes and their plans to bring a taste of Pit to the rest of the UK.
You’ve been friends since childhood and now run a restaurant together. Be honest: has Pit Kitchen strengthened the friendship or seriously tested it?
A: Both!
G: Yes I agree! Overall the testing part strengthens the relationship but there’s no doubt, it’s a different dynamic to a normal friendship now. Things can get stressful running a restaurant but we have very different strengths which is why I think, ultimately, we make a great team.
Pit started life as a roadside food venture and is now somewhere people travel to the Cotswolds specifically to visit. When did you first realise you might actually be onto something?
A: It was never really a roadside venture, just a much smaller version of what we have
now. Imagine a 20ft shipping container in a field with three staff working. Probably when the crowds descended upon us early doors, that’s when we realised that we were really onto something.
G: Yes – Father’s Day 2025 we had over 100 people queuing to get a seat before we opened. It was squeaky bum time. But good problems! At that point we knew something was starting to happen.
George, you’ve worked everywhere from Michelin-level kitchens to River Cottage. What made you swap that world for cooking over fire in a barn?
G: Working with my mate Adam was a massive draw – he’s a lot of fun and good things happen when he’s around. Also, Pit has a lot of similarities to River Cottage – nestled in the English countryside, amazing produce all around you. Maybe the familiarity drew me back.
A Barn kitchen can be difficult to work in at the best of times, but when you’ve worked in kitchens indoors for 15+ years, the feeling of being more connected to a natural environment, and bbq’ing in the open air is amazing.
There’s some serious cooking going on at Pit, but the restaurant itself feels deliberately relaxed. Was avoiding the formality of traditional restaurants always part of the plan?
A: Absolutely, we think there is a real shift in the way that people want to dine these days and the more rural locations are well behind the big cities in terms of offering. Therein lies the opportunity.
You cook with brilliant Cotswold produce, but borrow flavours from all over the world. Where do you tend to look for inspiration when you’re working on a new dish?
G: More often than not we cook food that we have some kind of nostalgic connection to or memory of. Something amazing that we’ve tried on holiday, or eaten with friends and family – trusted classics, tweaked and played with to fit into Pit Kitchen's style and ops. It’s always important to find a balance between serving what you love to cook, with what your customers want to eat.
Cooking over fire looks incredibly simple when it’s done well. What’s the one thing people usually get completely wrong about it?
G: Having a bit of patience with the fire itself. It’s easy to light a fire, put the food straight over it and burn the outside, leaving it raw in the middle. Give it time to burn down and build a good bed of embers. Then create different areas of heat so you’ve somewhere to sear and somewhere to cook gently. Much of the skill is in managing the fire. The cooking gets much easier once you’ve got that right.
Because you work so closely with local farms and seasonal produce, does the ingredient usually come first and the dish second, or do you ever go looking for something very specific?
G: Some ingredients that are produced near us are so amazing they have to take precedence when in season, and so dishes are formed around them: Evesham strawberries, Todenham lamb, courgettes from Drinkwater Farm, to name a few. But sometimes an idea for a dish comes forth first and we just search for the right seasonal ingredients to bring it to life.
What’s the most ‘Pit Kitchen’ dish you’ve ever created?
G: The Persian Chicken Thigh Flatbread is our biggest selling dish ever and the first one we ever cooked, way back in lockdown when we did our first menu tasting at Adam’s house in Dalston, East London.
You’ve become pretty good at going viral on Instagram. Is there one dish or video that went absolutely mad online and caught you completely by surprise?
A: It tends to be the videos that capture the whole experience that really go viral on IG. Food, fire, setting, lots of customers have a great time.
Are there dishes you simply aren’t allowed to take off the menu anymore because customers would revolt?
A: Yes, our Sweetcorn and Green Chilli fritters! I think there might actually be protests if we took them off the menu.
Pit is growing into a destination in its own right. How ambitious are you for it? Could there ever be another Pit Kitchen, or does the barn and this particular setting make it impossible to replicate?
A: Very ambitious, we think there is the opportunity Pit Kitchens in rural locations all over the UK. We plan to open a new site every year in the short term.
G: We have a great ecosystem of local staff and suppliers, at which our restaurant sits at the centre, and we are quickly learning how to work successfully in challenging rural locations whilst bringing out the beauty in their idiosyncrasies. It’s also such a positive business for the local economy, and for supporting the renaissance of appreciation for the British countryside and what it has to offer, that it would be a shame not to see how it lands in other places.
Finally, after a busy summer service, the fires are dying down and everyone’s gone home: what are the two of you eating and drinking?
Both: Mainly wine, and bbq’d lamb if there’s any left!
