Diners were in for a treat when Marco Pierre White joined them for a special lunch in Durham on Monday.
The restaurateur and celebrity chef was visiting the city branch of his Marco Pierre White Steakhouse Bar & Grill in Hotel Indigo where customers had snapped up the chance to buy tickets to join him.
Besides launching a new spring menu at the restaurant he was there to mark its first birthday, as part of the hotel's £15m transformation from the former Old Shire Hall .
Besides the meet-and-greet lunch, White - famous for being the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars - also gave out signed copies of his groundbreaking cook book White Heat, first published in 1990 and re-released in 2015 in a 25-year anniversary edition.
His new menu, now available at the restaurant in Hotel Indigo, includes the likes of fillet, rib-eye and Chateaubriand steaks and one of White's own favourite starters: a Scotch egg with Colonel Mustard sauce.
Later on Monday, White was due to move on to the other local branch of his restaurant, in Newcastle's similarly stylish Hotel Indigo, to host a dinner.
When he was there in 2014, he told during an interview with The Chronicle of how the right environment can make a dining experience.
White has been paying a personal visit to his restaurants across the UK, with a final stop-off planned in Essex on Tuesday.
He is also said to be planning a first Marco's Motorway Drive Through on the nation's motorways, following his successful concept in New York.
